# Women in fantasy



## Chilari

Moving on from the Bechdel test threads, I think it's time we got this discussion moving again. I have not called this Bechdel thread part 3 or whatever because I think we've moved past discussion of the test format - the consensus seems to be that it's a blunt tool and not necessarily useful - to discuss how we can improve portrayals of female characters, where it has been done successfully or badly in recent published fiction, and look at character archetypes which are either exclusively men or exclusively women, and examine why this is and how we can challenge it.

But there are rules, to prevent this from getting out of hand again:

If you don't think this needs to be discussed, don't discuss it. Leave the rest of us to discuss it.
Don't characterise any position you do not hold. This leads to straw man arguments.
Let's keep away from real world gender politics and just discuss the topic as it relates to characters in fantasy stories.

One thing brought up in the last thread was that there are rarely female characters who are genuinely cowardly - they're either frightened, briefly, for the hero to help out, or brave, self-assured women. What other flaws or strengths do you rarely see in a female character that you often get in male characters?

You also see a lot of female warrior types who either try to keep up with the men, or exceed their abilities. But you don't often see male characters in female social spheres or professions, trying to prove they're just as good as the women. Is this because the activities generally written about in fantasy are usually traditionally male activities, like soldiering, or is there something deeper? Has anyone read anything, or writing anything, that shows a male character in this situation. I think it could certainly work in situations with mages - if magic is generally a feminine pursuit, whereas swordplay and physical fighting is more masculine in a particular orld, a male mage trying to make his way in a normally female pursuit would be possible.


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## Devor

This one, with the new DC 52, really ticked me off when I read it.

I've never been a fan of DC, so this isn't me being a fanboy.  And it's not just that they did this to a woman, but that they're clearly doing intentionally, and they're doing it to well-known, well-loved characters who were doing just fine before the sexualized relaunch.  They're abandoning strong women for sex appeal, and that's pretty much them saying that the women in their audience don't matter, they're not even going to try.


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## Chime85

Oddly enough, I too liked the idea of having a female coward in a story. It is a rare sight (in fact, no examples come to mind) to have a female coward. 

I think someone touched upon a very good perspective when it comes to writing in the previous thread. That is, two not assign genders to characters until you* have fleshed them out. It gives the character more body when you set your mind to consider, more freely, what a person is. This eliminated the unintentional trap of thinking what would a man do, or what would a woman do. It also eliminates any agendas a writer may or may not have regarding (for lack of a better phrase) the battle of the sexes.

*hypothetically


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## Steerpike

Chilari said:


> One thing brought up in the last thread was that there are rarely female characters who are genuinely cowardly - they're either frightened, briefly, for the hero to help out, or brave, self-assured women. What other flaws or strengths do you rarely see in a female character that you often get in male characters?



It may be that some writers will shy away from something like abject cowardice out of concern for being accused of writing "weak" female characters. The thing I see most often is that however the female characters are portrayed, they're monolithic. The author seizes onto one defining characteristic, whether it's that they need saving, or they're the brave warrior type, or the snarky self-reliant rogue, or what have you, and that's about as far as the characterization goes. With male characters, on the other hand, while you will see some central traits that take center stage in the presentation of the character, the author is much more likely to look beyond that and try to add further depth and complexity to the character. In other words, the male characters are more real, whereas the female characters are there precisely so the author can say "see what I did here with this strong female character?"



> You also see a lot of female warrior types who either try to keep up with the men, or exceed their abilities. But you don't often see male characters in female social spheres or professions, trying to prove they're just as good as the women. Is this because the activities generally written about in fantasy are usually traditionally male activities, like soldiering, or is there something deeper? Has anyone read anything, or writing anything, that shows a male character in this situation. I think it could certainly work in situations with mages - if magic is generally a feminine pursuit, whereas swordplay and physical fighting is more masculine in a particular orld, a male mage trying to make his way in a normally female pursuit would be possible.



Ah, well this gets into complexities, right? The fantasy worlds we read about will, in the vast majority of cases, reflect the value systems of the society in which the writing was produced. That value system is mirrored in the fantasy world. If you look at a patriarchal system, all the high-value role are the traditionally male roles. The easiest and most obvious way to try to reflect women as strong or powerful is to move them into the traditionally male sphere. It's a mistake, in my view, in that it gives up the fight one step too late. Moving the males into traditionally-female roles will work, but I think you've got to build a very different society around such a story - one in which the patriarchal value system is not assumed. That's hard for writers to do, and maybe harder for many readers to relate to. Even in the fantasy context, where literally the entire world is at your whim in terms of design, value system, power structure, etc., the default and by far most predominant situation is one in which the patriarchal value system is presumed, and then everything else one might call world-building is built on top of that.

In terms of books, one thing you might look at is _The Gate to Women's Country_, by Sherri Tepper (in fact a lot of Tepper's works will serve, but this one relates specifically to a matriarchal society). It's a well-written story, as all of her's are, and also a pretty interesting take on biological sex determining value system and valued or devalued roles. I won't tell you where she ends up with it, but it's worth reading.

Also, anything by Octavia Butler is excellent. _Kindred _and _Parable_ _of the Sower_, for example. _Fledgling_ was also great. Butler touches a lot on gender issues, and her female characters are complex and real (see for example _Parable of the Sower_. Great character; haunting book in many ways). Also, Butler was a black woman, and a lesbian, writing spectacular works in a field that still remains largely dominated by white men. So you'll get a unique perspective on character from her, and I think it is instructive to see how she deals with characters and creating the empathy and understanding in a reader that really makes one care about her characters.


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## Steerpike

Devor said:


> This one, with the new DC 52, really ticked me off when I read it.



Yeah, that's pretty bad. There is an interesting link at the bottom giving a 7 year old girl's perspective on the character. Using sexual abuse as a punishment or consequence for female characters is not uncommon in fantasy media, particularly if the female character has progressive views toward sexuality. It makes for a very shaky line if you're an author and you're going to incorporate rape or similar elements into a story, because it is so easy to turn the whole thing into a punishment (or at least to make it look that way), or to fall into the trap of then turning the rape element into something that is about the male character (his redemption, or lack thereof, whatever), making the rape of the female character nothing more than a vehicle to develop and/or comment on the male character. Most of the time when I see this, I don't feel like the author handles it very well.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Chime85 said:


> Oddly enough, I too liked the idea of having a female coward in a story. It is a rare sight (in fact, no examples come to mind) to have a female coward.


I see a problem with this character type. Maybe I'm being short-sighted, but how would one write a cowardly character of any gender & still have that character be proactive? I assume we're talking about MCs here & not some tertiary character.

I'm a big believer in the need of a character to eventually be proactive if the reader is to relate. When I say eventually...sooner rather than later.


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## WyrdMystic

I can't recall any female cowardly characters in fantasy - they seem to be mainly reserved for horror, in particular, horror movies...and then mainly the sorrority girl slamming the door, running up the stairs and locking themsleves in the bathroom, or running out back and tripping, spraining the ankle...and on and on ad nauseam.

Saying that, I don't think male cowrads are particularly prevelant either. I think this is because the 'coward' archetype isn't one that really suits a fantasy MC. Though a character may start as a coward, they grow and evolve until they become brave in some way, either by facing their fears or doing doing something heroic that is against their original nature.

I also think 'coward' can be defined different ways...for instance, isn't someone who throws up and shakes and hides in extreme situations who also forces themselves to get into those situations to achieve a goal actually brave??

I think not choosing a gender before fleshing the character doesn't really work - mainly because you are picking traits and then saying, because of those traits, that must be a man or must be a woman.

As for the DC comics thing, that's down to the sexualisation of youth through pop culture. Comics are a dwindling franchise and, unfortunately, one of the quickest way to increaser a fan base in modern society is to sexualise it.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Steerpike said:


> If you look at a patriarchal system, all the high-value role are the traditionally male roles. The easiest and most obvious way to try to reflect women as strong or powerful is to move them into the traditionally male sphere. It's a mistake, in my view, in that it gives up the fight one step too late.


This is an outstanding point. 

Most of my favorite female characters are very feminine and follow feminine pursuits (those their society dictates to be feminine). However, they wield enormous influence & power...in many ways their strength is derived from femininity. I'm not talking about power wielded by influencing men to exert power by proxy either, although sometimes that can create a compelling character full of contradictions.


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## Feo Takahari

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I see a problem with this character type. Maybe I'm being short-sighted, but how would one write a cowardly character of any gender & still have that character be proactive? I assume we're talking about MCs here & not some tertiary character.
> 
> I'm a big believer in the need of a character to eventually be proactive if the reader is to relate. When I say eventually...sooner rather than later.



Actually, the cowardly hero is pretty well-established in fantasy fiction. I'd say Rincewind is the quintessential modern example, though you could also make a case for Ciaphas Cain (a coward so pragmatic he effectively becomes a hero through risk minimization.)

As for Starfire, I think Shortpacked sums it up.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Feo Takahari said:


> Actually, the cowardly hero is pretty well-established in fantasy fiction. I'd say Rincewind is the quintessential modern example, though you could also make a case for Ciaphas Cain (a coward so pragmatic he effectively becomes a hero through risk minimization.)
> 
> As for Starfire, I think Shortpacked sums it up.



I'm not familiar with any of these characters. 

My question isn't "if they exist"... It's how do you write one to be proactive? If I'm going to write an MC type character, I want them to be relatable and sympathetic. I just don't think you can get a powerful effect without proactivity on some level.


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## Feo Takahari

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I'm not familiar with any of these characters.
> 
> My question isn't "if they exist"... It's how do you write one to be proactive? If I'm going to write an MC type character, I want them to be relatable and sympathetic. I just don't think you can get a powerful effect without proactivity on some level.



I don't want to attach too much weight to this argument, since I'm not specifically arguing for more cowardly protagonists. (Truth be told, one possibility I imagined was a female version of the spinelessly traitorous Beni from _The Mummy_.) I'm just interested in more variety in general.


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## Lucas

Chime85 said:


> Oddly enough, I too liked the idea of having a female coward in a story. It is a rare sight (in fact, no examples come to mind) to have a female coward.
> 
> I think someone touched upon a very good perspective when it comes to writing in the previous thread. That is, two not assign genders to characters until you* have fleshed them out. It gives the character more body when you set your mind to consider, more freely, what a person is. This eliminated the unintentional trap of thinking what would a man do, or what would a woman do. It also eliminates any agendas a writer may or may not have regarding (for lack of a better phrase) the battle of the sexes.
> 
> *hypothetically



The "damsel in distress" is the archetypical example of a female coward. Cowardice is however not seen as a vice amongst females.


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## ThinkerX

Hmm...some of Lovecrafts male characters were cowardly...or at least not particularly brave. However, they did sometimes survive their encounters with alien monstrosities, though often they spent time in the insane asylum afterwards.

As to female characters...I see a lot of 'urban fantasy' books on the shelves which appear to revolve around kick-but female characters, be they vampires, werewolves, witches, or demons (or some combination thereof).  Many of the authors are women.

For my own writing...lessee...

'Bethany' - makes a brief appearance in chapter one of Labyrinth and is slated to appear elsewhere.  She is an exiled princess, raised in isolation.  Not as good socially as women are supposed to be, and more self reliant.

'Ann' - wife of the MC in Labyrinth, appears but briefly.  Alienated, because her husband is gone much of the time and it is a lackluster political marriage to boot.

Dr Isabella Menendez - healer and wizard, major character in Labyrinth, refered to elsewhere.  She is an old woman in Labyrinth, but was also married several times.  She is lonely, having outlived her husbands and children, and can't really relate with her grandchildren.  She is also afraid of the Church inquisition, first seeking refuge with a major family of sininster repute and then venturing to the edge of the map.  

'Theodora' - one of the MC's of 'Empire'. Attractive, barely out of her teens, of impoverished aristocratic stock.  She has to contend with her parents efforts to set her up with men of other aristocratic families, most of whom she despises (ones old, ones a psychopath, ones perpetually ill, and so on). Theodora and her companions are agents for a wealthy, well connected merchant. In the first tale, she is 'bold', but not particularly 'brave', and is deeply scarred by what happens.


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## Jamber

A character of any gender trapped in a circumstance they need rescuing from is hardly cowardly. Odds are simply overwhelming them. Rapunzel in her tower isn't cowardly; she's just locked in. What's significant about traditional representation is that women were so often portrayed as passive in that way. (It could be argued that the Bechdel test can help expose this kind of passivity, though as I said once before I feel it's inappropriate to novels.)

On another note, I often feel bravery is coded very differently for men and women. Has anyone else felt this way? A woman who rescues her child from the jaws of a lion is often seen as just operating under 'maternal instinct'; a father who did the same thing is applauded as a hero (maternity is not coded as in any way 'heroic'). Aliens is complicated for this reason -- Ripley should seem purely heroic, but there's a sense where she's also acting out an anguished maternal instinct (her flesh-and-blood child having died). As a childless younger woman I remember feeling a little annoyed that she couldn't just be heroic without the maternal stuff; now it actually seems a little radical (there aren't that many woman-saving-the-child stories). Angela Carter did a luminous rewrite of Bluebeard where the bride is rescued by her mother. The only myth I can think of that follows mother-child heroism is Demeter/Persephone, and it's kind of a split tale.

Sorry, I'm waffling. My basic point, I suppose, is that context is just as important as characterisation. I wouldn't feel a female mercenary who fights men for their purses to be heroic in itself, but against a social setting in which rich men oppress poor females, it is. As well, against a history of representation in which women are passive and walked-over by males, the 'kick-ass' femme could be said to be _representationally_ heroic. Rapunzel lets a man climb up her hair (I gather original versions had the old hag become aware of the goings-on only when Rapunzel's belly started to swell). Against some contexts there's a weird kind of heroism in that.

Just my thoughts,

Jennie


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## Feo Takahari

Speaking of Rapunzel, what's everyone think of how she's portrayed in Disney's _Tangled_? Her ultimate act of heroism is 



Spoiler



promising to stay with Gothel and never leave in return for the chance to save Flynn, attempting to sacrifice her future to save the life of the man she loves.



It's not the conventional sort of heroism, but I found it quite powerful.


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## Nihal

I think it's harder to portray a coward woman because it's the expected behaviour of a woman. A man who get paralyzed by fear or run away is a coward, a woman who does the same thing is being _a woman_.

Sad, annoying, - I particularly find this line of thought outrageous - but true. That's how our society usually sees the issue. The character won't ring as a coward to the most of your readers, she'll sound more as a "being a woman". She would be annoying, yes, but not exactly rejected as a coward in the same way male MCs would be.

Having this in mind, portray a coward woman would require an additional effort to convince the general audience that this kind of behaviour, in this female character, should be despised. You must either give a reason powerful enough to make the coward act sound really coward - like using the expected motherly instinct against the character, E.G.: A mother throws her own child to a wolf and run away -, or carefully disconstruct this notion by other means, as describing a whole society of brave women.

These are the easiest ways to do this, but I can think of a trilogy called Abhorsen where one of the MCs - female - acts as a coward and was pretty convincing in this role. I'm not sure of why, I guess she was successfully portrayed as a person before being a woman.


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## Penpilot

Devor said:


> This one, with the new DC 52, really ticked me off when I read it.



FYI this isn't something new to DC. Look at number two on this list. The 6 Creepiest Sexual Encounters in Comic Book History | Cracked.com They did it to Nightwing, aka Dick Grayson, aka the original Robin, long before this.

Coincidentally I Starfire and Nightwing were a couple once upon a time.


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## WyrdMystic

That doesn't ring true with me. I think things have generally moved on from that view point and acts of caowardice are generally the norm amongst both genders in real life, hence the person who has the guts to step in and save someone is heralded as a hero.

It's not fantasy but the female MC in Copycat suffered from extreme agorophobia, and ultimately overcame that fear to get the baddie. I think that shows that cowardice and bravery are subjective. It's not the amount of danger that is the true measure of bravery, but the amount/strength of the fear that is overcome. Also, a brave act from someone without fear could as easily be a result of stupidity and therefore not really brave at all as there was nothing to overcome.

The example of the mother saving a child from the jaws of a lion is one, I think, that shows that the maternal instinct is one of the strongest driving factors in nature. 

I don't think it's 'just' being a woman, I think its a sign that women are, in some ways, much stronger than men. And neither do I thing the mother would not be thought of as being a hero. The issue is more that she would be thought of being as more of a hero because she is a woman, whereas a man would just be doing his job so to speak...that's the line that doesn't sit right with me

EDIT - Ninja'd


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## Chime85

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I see a problem with this character type. Maybe I'm being short-sighted, but how would one write a cowardly character of any gender & still have that character be proactive? I assume we're talking about MCs here & not some tertiary character.
> 
> I'm a big believer in the need of a character to eventually be proactive if the reader is to relate. When I say eventually...sooner rather than later.



Steerpike from gormenghast. He is the embodiment of a coward through most of his life. By all means, he cheats the system as it were, but he hides himself from those who watch him. He uses authority to gain power, not his positive merits. By all means, he is the villain, he is also the hero.


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## Devor

Nihal said:


> I think it's harder to portray a coward woman because it's the expected behaviour of a woman. A man who get paralyzed by fear or run away is a coward, a woman who does the same thing is being _a woman_.



I would say a coward is someone who doesn't just freeze or run, but who actually does really despicable things out of fear.

Women, I think, aren't expected to stand up and fight against a larger male adversary, but that's not really the same thing.  It's not cowardice to recognize that you're outmatched, and most women who freeze and run haven't made any special commitments to show bravery, like becoming a soldier.

But I can't think of a female character who does really despicable things because she's afraid.  Well, not in the genre, anyways.  I can think of some women on television who do really despicable things because they're afraid of losing the guy, which probably just proves the point even further.




Penpilot said:


> FYI this isn't something new to DC. Look at number two on this list. The 6 Creepiest Sexual Encounters in Comic Book History | Cracked.com They did it to Nightwing, aka Dick Grayson, aka the original Robin, long before this.



I don't know, that seems like a reasonable plot point by comparison to what they're doing to Starfire, and also like a piece of reasonable social commentary.  Starfire, in the new 52, isn't being raped; she just has trouble telling humans apart, or remembering anything about them, so she doesn't care who she sleeps with because she hardly knows the difference.

That seems like a low point, to me, in terms of portraying what female sexuality means, and a pretty far degradation of what had been a relatively strong female character.


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## Chime85

Penpilot said:


> FYI this isn't something new to DC. Look at number two on this list. The 6 Creepiest Sexual Encounters in Comic Book History | Cracked.com They did it to Nightwing, aka Dick Grayson, aka the original Robin, long before this.
> 
> Coincidentally I Starfire and Nightwing were a couple once upon a time.



Does that not prove the point of this thread?!

How much of an uproar would it be if a male character was raped like that?!


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## Chime85

Lucas said:


> The "damsel in distress" is the archetypical example of a female coward. Cowardice is however not seen as a vice amongst females.



A relative mistake. Why should the D.I.D be a coward? By all means, she does not fight, but neither does the farmer who wants the best for his family.


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## saellys

Yup, the damsel in distress is passive, not cowardly. As for that not being seen as a vice among women, that ties in with Nihal's excellent post.


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## Chilari

Lucas said:


> The "damsel in distress" is the archetypical example of a female coward. Cowardice is however not seen as a vice amongst females.



I would disagree. The damsel in distress often is not cowardly, but rather simply not strong enough to defeat the bad guy or escape. Often, especially in more recent stuff, damsels in distress get into distress precisely because their bravery outweighs their power and influence.

The above example of Benni from the Mummy, who is a true coward, is a good one. He acts always in self-interest, whether for gold or survival, and if there's danger he won't stick around long enough to get caught by it, if he can help it. He's the first to run; and when running isn't an option, he'll bargain. You don't see that in female characters. You see female characters who are frightened, sure, but being frightened doesn't make them cowardly; and usually they're frightened just in time for the hero to come along and get rid of whatever frightens them.

As for cowardly characters in general, I don't see them as good MCs. Rincewind aside, as that's played for laughs. Generally the coward character is a sidekick to the hero or a minor antagonist. But always male.


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## SeverinR

Cowardly females are common, they are regular townspeople, or the damsel in distress.  They usually aren't a main character.

I think the average female mc in a fantasy setting is pretty much one or two characteristics, sheena-female muscle bound barbarian, and the tough, trying to prove herself equal to men to the world female.

I like Game of Thrones array of female characters, some control men to kill, some actually do their own killing.  A few fighting the stereotypical noble female role.


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## WarriorPrincess

I must be breaking all traditions in the novel I'm writing, as my my main character is a female who is neither "muscle bound" or trys to out-do the males in the story. Ive created her with personal goals but also everyone is not perect so she has flaws like the rest of us.


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## Chilari

I'm not so sure of your assessment of female main characters. I think there are some different types of female main characters besides the warrior queen/Xena type and the defiant, as-good-as-the-men type. Sophie Hatter of Howl's Moving Castle, for example, never compares herself to men or male characters, and neither can she be described as a warrior types. Really she's a well meaning busybody. But it is true that a lot of female main/major characters in fantasy works are along those lines. I'd like to see more of different female character types in fantasy. Female characters who either deliberately or accidentally end up fitting into a male context, like the Xena and as-good-as-the-men types, still fail to represent female characters who can be simultaneously rounded and feminine.

If anyone is familiar with the Lauren Faust led My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series, I think Faust's intent there is what I'm going for. Faust stated that she was motivated to show different ways to be a girl thorugh the characters she presented. The characters achieve goals, including fairly adventurous ones like defeating a dragon, while still being feminine and while still being true to their characters.

What I've seen a lot of is female characters who are strong because they've rejected feminity. A lot of Tamora Pierce's female leads (from back when I was reading them anyway - Alanna, Daine, Keladry) were female but masculine, for example. They operated in a male world and to male standards.

Perhaps the answer is to write stories which aren't about war. A lot of fantasy is war-centric, and a lot of characters are warriors of some description. In that context, male protagonists and masculine female protagonists are to be expected. But there are fantasy settings that could easily have characters that aren't required to be fighters. I think Terry Pratchett tends to achieve this well with his female characters - the challenges they face don't require swords most of the time, but rather brains, bravery and imagination. Non-warrior stories also give the opportunity to have a range of different characters types, male or female, in all sorts of contexts. Warrior or soldier settings only have a very small scope for non-warrior or soldier character types.


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## Steerpike

Chilari said:


> Warrior or soldier settings only have a very small scope for non-warrior or soldier character types.



Yeah, I think that's a good point. It is also an option, though, to pull females into the war/soldiering aspect of the story (assuming you want to write a fantasy that deals with war and fighting; as you point out we could use more stories that get away from this). You can see female characters incorporated right along men in war, and as effectively, in Steven Erikson's Malazan books. Another example is Elizabeth Moon's _Sheepfarmer's Daughter_, which Saellys pointed out in the last thread. So even if you do want to write a fantasy that has lots of war and fighting, I think there are good ways of pulling female characters into that milieu and having them stand alongside the men as well-done characters.


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## Feo Takahari

I don't think the "soldier" character type is particularly variable while in combat, since soldiers are supposed to follow orders efficiently and not question the system. With that said, they can display all sorts of masculine or feminine personalities when not engaged in battle. (I'm not personally familiar with it, but I've been told _Valkyria Chronicles_ did this pretty well.)


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## Jabrosky

Chilari said:


> Perhaps the answer is to write stories which aren't about war. A lot of fantasy is war-centric, and a lot of characters are warriors of some description. In that context, male protagonists and masculine female protagonists are to be expected. But there are fantasy settings that could easily have characters that aren't required to be fighters. I think Terry Pratchett tends to achieve this well with his female characters - the challenges they face don't require swords most of the time, but rather brains, bravery and imagination. Non-warrior stories also give the opportunity to have a range of different characters types, male or female, in all sorts of contexts. Warrior or soldier settings only have a very small scope for non-warrior or soldier character types.


Thing is, a lot of young guys like me prefer action-packed, thrilling adventures in which characters confront life-threatening situations and must defend themselves and the ones they care about. Of course there probably exist ways to write this without making the characters all sword-swinging warriors, but warriors are the professionals that first come to mind when you think of action heroes.

I don't necessarily think the warrior profession and femininity are mutually exclusive, as if there were no "feminine" way to fight. I've always thought fighting styles which emphasized agility, stealth, and cunning had a more "feminine" vibe than simple head-on bruising.


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## Chilari

But fighting is still traditionally a male world, even if certain fighting styles lend themselves more to female ability or feminine traits. Many armies around the world don't allow women to serve on the front lines now, in the 21st century; some don't let women serve at all. So women in fighting roles are still seen as occupying a male sphere.

And action isn't exclusively about fighting. There are many different types of exciting action that don't involve punches being thrown. Chases, for example, have both urgency and conflict, without requiring violence, and can be very exciting and action packed, whichever side of the chase the protagonist is on.

Magical battle can be construed as being feminine or neutral in the context of the world a story is set in, and so can present conflict without physical violence or warrior-based tropes, in a feminine context, and still be action packed.

And both of these situations - chases and magical battles - can present live-threatening situations for all involved, without needing a warrior/soldier archtype or context.


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## Devor

Chilari said:


> Perhaps the answer is to write stories which aren't about war.



That goes a long way towards understanding why you see women fitting into certain archetypes in fantasy.  But it also goes back to the basic principle, you write the stories you want to write, and if you want to see something written, you largely have to write it yourself.  Warfare is one of fantasy's biggest strengths as a genre, and for many people, one of the biggest draws, especially once you pull out "YA" and "Paranormal Romance," and you see what's left on the shelf.  I don't think that's going to change anytime soon.

To some extent, I think there should be some recognition that damsels in distress, warrior women and the like are going to be present in Fantasy, and that can be okay.  I think the bigger priority would be saying, _"Hey, there's an opening in the market to create new archetypes for women in fantasy, what can we come up with?"_  I think that's why so many people feel compelled to respond to the idea of a female coward and wonder, "Can this work as an archetype?  Can we expand on the go-to-starting points for what we do with women in fantasy?"

I think for a lot of starting authors, doing something new with women really means creating a new vehicle, and not refitting the old car.  That's a challenge most writers _shouldn't need to overcome_ unless that's connected to the elements they want to focus on when doing something original in their writing.  For most things people end up adding their own piece to what's been done before.  But with women, there just hasn't been as much to draw on.  _It's still a segment that's developing_, and I think it's okay if someone isn't interested in writing the kind of story that develops it further.

I think what is useful, for such a person and towards some of the issues raised in this thread, is increasing awareness of the female archetypes available to draw from, and making that list of archetypes as wide and varied as possible.


----------



## Feo Takahari

I'm not sure I get what the whole deal is here. If I may approach this personally, I have one character who's a fairly average teenage girl who happens to be a youth cadet in her country's military. She's disciplined, she's efficient, and she knows how to use a crossbow, but I don't think that makes her particularly "unfeminine."

Edit: Actually, let's take this one step further. Many great virtues have been coopted as "masculine". What's the problem with someone aspiring to those virtues, whether the aspiring individual is male or female? It doesn't necessarily mean rejecting the "feminine" virtues.


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## Steerpike

Chilari said:


> But fighting is still traditionally a male world, even if certain fighting styles lend themselves more to female ability or feminine traits.



I suppose it depends on how you approach it, in a fantasy world. Fighting is a traditionally male endeavor in the real world. So if you put females in those roles in your fantasy world, you can either adopt the traditional patriarchal value system, in which case even within the context of your story you are pushing females into a world traditionally dominated by men. This can be done effectively, but it is worth keeping in mind that you are pulling the whole patriarchal world view into the story within it.

On the other hand, you could approach it by trying to create a fantasy world where the fighting is not a traditionally-male endeavor, and where the patriarchal value system from the real world is thrown out the window entirely. This is the harder route to go, as an author, because you'll have to overcome the baggage that the reader brings to the story (the reader living within the patriarchal value system and bringing a lot of those assumptions with them). I think it can be done, though. You might well end up with a story that includes war and battle, but that looks a lot different from the usual fantasy battles and is more than just inserting women in to men's roles.


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## Steerpike

Feo Takahari said:


> Edit: Actually, let's take this one step further. Many great virtues have been coopted as "masculine". What's the problem with someone aspiring to those virtues, whether the aspiring individual is male or female? It doesn't necessarily mean rejecting the "feminine" virtues.



That's right, because the patriarchal value system is the default assumption. The high-value virtues, activities, or whatever you want to call them are identified with the traditionally-male. It's a good thing to be aware of, and to know when, as an author, you are either implicitly or explicitly ratifying patriarchal values.


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## Feo Takahari

Steerpike said:


> That's right, because the patriarchal value system is the default assumption. The high-value virtues, activities, or whatever you want to call them are identified with the traditionally-male.



At risk of getting off-topic, I'm not sure this is entirely correct. Consider the "holy warrior" character type, a priest or monk who wanders the land fighting evil and protecting the innocent. This type has some traditionally "masculine" traits, most obviously combat prowess, but even male examples tend to display a strong sense of compassion, traditionally considered a more "feminine" virtue.


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## CupofJoe

I've tried writing a male MC as the damsel in distress [he looked and sounded like a Hero but needed someone to keep him safe most of the time] but I found it difficult in the world I was using to have a strong female MC [as a counterbalance for him] that would be take seriously by other men and women in the story. I couldn't escape the narrativium that the [DiD] man would be followed because he was the man. There as only so many times you can write variations "Ah, XX was were right" or "If only we'd listened to XX..." before it grates...


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## Steerpike

Feo Takahari said:


> At risk of getting off-topic, I'm not sure this is entirely correct. Consider the "holy warrior" character type, a priest or monk who wanders the land fighting evil and protecting the innocent. This type has some traditionally "masculine" traits, most obviously combat prowess, but even male examples tend to display a strong sense of compassion, traditionally considered a more "feminine" virtue.



Yeah but the traditionally feminine traits in those depictions tend to be shielded and made OK by the stronger, more central masculine traits. In other words, if you have sufficiently strong traditionally-masculine virtues, then its OK to include the traditionally-feminine traits as well (and even to value them as something that tempers the masculine), but in those characters you don't see the traditionally-feminine valued sufficiently to stand on its own. It has to be propped up by the masculine.


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## Philip Overby

Based on a book I'm reading now that T. Allen Smith recommended _45 Master Characters_, it lists several archetypes of male and female characters.  I'm sure there can be some overlap, but this is how they stack up (for heroines anyway, there are other inverses of these archetypes for villainous characters):

1.  The Seductive Muse-uses sexuality and creativity as her driving force
2.  The Amazon-a protector of women, strong physically, loves traveling and exploring, competitive
3.  The Father's Daughter-feels she is an exceptional woman that does things others can't, smart and strategic
4.  The Nurturer-has a sense to help others, loves children and motherhood, needs purpose by taking care of others
5.  The Matriarch-a woman that takes charge and commands respect, stands up for those she loves and herself
6.  The Mystic-introspective, loves solitude and simplicity, sometimes attracted to the other-worldly or spiritual
7.  The Female Messiah-the path to love and enlightenment, life is for one purpose, usually a higher one
8.  The Maiden-never worries, playful and carefree, feels invulnerable 

These archetypes are being paraphrased of course.  For deeper understanding of them, I highly recommend the book I suggested above.  Each of these archetypes has an inverse, or a dark side, so they can be explored further or combined with other archetypes to make richer characters.  

I'm curious if anyone thinks there are any types of women that aren't being represented by the above archetypes?  What else could be added?


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## Nihal

Phil the Drill said:


> I'm curious if anyone thinks there are any types of women that aren't being represented by the above archetypes?  What else could be added?



The most glaring omission I see: The tomboy! Hah!


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## Philip Overby

I think The Maiden may cover that (playful, carefree, feeling of invulnerability).  There's always the option to interchange female and male archetypes to fit your characters' needs.   That may be where a tomboy type character may fit in.


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## Feo Takahari

Phil the Drill said:


> Based on a book I'm reading now that T. Allen Smith recommended _45 Master Characters_, it lists several archetypes of male and female characters.  I'm sure there can be some overlap, but this is how they stack up (for heroines anyway, there are other inverses of these archetypes for villainous characters):
> 
> 1.  The Seductive Muse-uses sexuality and creativity as her driving force
> 2.  The Amazon-a protector of women, strong physically, loves traveling and exploring, competitive
> 3.  The Father's Daughter-feels she is an exceptional woman that does things others can't, smart and strategic
> 4.  The Nurturer-has a sense to help others, loves children and motherhood, needs purpose by taking care of others
> 5.  The Matriarch-a woman that takes charge and commands respect, stands up for those she loves and herself
> 6.  The Mystic-introspective, loves solitude and simplicity, sometimes attracted to the other-worldly or spiritual
> 7.  The Female Messiah-the path to love and enlightenment, life is for one purpose, usually a higher one
> 8.  The Maiden-never worries, playful and carefree, feels invulnerable
> 
> These archetypes are being paraphrased of course.  For deeper understanding of them, I highly recommend the book I suggested above.  Each of these archetypes has an inverse, or a dark side, so they can be explored further or combined with other archetypes to make richer characters.
> 
> I'm curious if anyone thinks there are any types of women that aren't being represented by the above archetypes?  What else could be added?



The most obvious omission I see is that there's no type that corresponds to an atoning ex-villain. (I know there are a LOT of female redeemed villains in Japanese fantasy, but I'm not sure how common they are in the U.S.) It also lacks science heroines (like Agatha from Girl Genius) and more cunning heroines (like Lyra from _His Dark Materials_, unless you want to force her into "Father's Daughter".) And probably whatever Granny Weatherwax is--her type isn't usually used as a protagonist, but she fills the role pretty well.


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## Nihal

Phil the Drill said:


> I think The Maiden may cover that (playful, carefree, feeling of invulnerability).  There's always the option to interchange female and male archetypes to fit your characters' needs.   That may be where a tomboy type character may fit in.



It's true that usually they're young, but the tomboy isn't always playful and carefree. It's more about not fitting in the specified gender role you're expected to fit.

P.s.: Lyra has also a lot of tomboy in her.


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## Devor

Feo Takahari said:


> The most obvious omission I see is that there's no type that corresponds to an atoning ex-villain. (I know there are a LOT of female redeemed villains in Japanese fantasy, but I'm not sure how common they are in the U.S.) It also lacks science heroines (like Agatha from Girl Genius) and more cunning heroines (like Lyra from _His Dark Materials_, unless you want to force her into "Father's Daughter".) And probably whatever Granny Weatherwax is--her type isn't usually used as a protagonist, but she fills the role pretty well.



Your examples are over my head.  In broad strokes, what would a compelling female ex-villain seeking redemption look like to you?  I'm curious both about the villainy and the path to redemption.  I think a crystal-clear example image would help.


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## Feo Takahari

Well, what I was specifically thinking of was that there doesn't seem to be anything on that list that a Dark Magical Girl might comfortably fit into. (I suppose they might better fit something on the villain list, since they tend to start as villains, but I think of them as heroines because they're almost always redeemed.)

P.S. It might be worth mentioning that I'm an advocate of taking archetypes that aren't traditionally protagonists and using them in protagonist roles--traditional antagonists, traditional mentors, traditional comic relief characters, and so on, all getting their day in the spotlight.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Nihal said:


> The most glaring omission I see: The tomboy! Hah!


She's there. I'd say the Tomboy would be a mix of The Maiden & The Father's Daughter ("one of the guys" archetype). The book is too detailed to understand from just a list of names.



Feo Takahari said:


> The most obvious omission I see is that there's no type that corresponds to an atoning ex-villain. (I know there are a LOT of female redeemed villains in Japanese fantasy, but I'm not sure how common they are in the U.S.) It also lacks science heroines (like Agatha from Girl Genius) and more cunning heroines (like Lyra from His Dark Materials, unless you want to force her into "Father's Daughter".) And probably whatever Granny Weatherwax is--her type isn't usually used as a protagonist, but she fills the role pretty well.


There's a big difference between archetypes & character story.

Like Phil said... All of the archetypes have flip-sides that depict the darker version. That's where you'll find your villains. There's in depth analysis of potential character arcs (including redemptions), pairing archetypes, etc. The list Phil provided is only a small subsection. Each archetype has very detailed descriptions the writer could potentially use. Like most good resources, it is meant to be a guide towards character creation that can enhance distinction, not a stringent blueprint. In my opinion, all archetypes should be viewed in that light.



Feo Takahari said:


> Well, what I was specifically thinking of was that there doesn't seem to be anything on that list that a Dark Magical Girl might comfortably fit into. (I suppose they might better fit something on the villain list, since they tend to start as villains, but I think of them as heroines because they're almost always redeemed.)


The Mystic, or her flip-side, The Betrayer depending on story role.


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## Feo Takahari

This could probably be spun off into an entirely different thread about archetypes (characters with relatively fixed story roles and somewhat fluid personalities--e.g. the Temptress) and stock characters (characters with relatively fixed personalities and somewhat fluid story roles--e.g. Harlequina.) I tend to think in terms of the latter to the point of ignoring that the former exist.

P.S. And I just realized that I used the term "archetype" above when referring to stock characters. Would it help if I admitted that I'm also figuring this out as I go along?

P.P.S. Just realized that "Harlequina" might be an obscure term. Kate in _The Taming of the Shrew_ is the most well-known example of her type. (That entire play is based around stock characters, some of whom occupy relatively unusual roles.)


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## Devor

Feo Takahari said:


> This could probably be spun off into an entirely different thread about archetypes (characters with relatively fixed story roles and somewhat fluid personalities--e.g. the Temptress) and stock characters (characters with relatively fixed personalities and somewhat fluid story roles--e.g. Harlequina.)



Right.  Without double-checking the definition, I was referring to archetypes in terms of the role a female character can play in a fantasy story, rather than her raw personality types.  For the point I was making in the conversation, I'm more interested in archetypes to contrast with the "Damsel in Distress" than in trying to categorize how many types of women there are (which can be helpful in many contexts, don't get me wrong, but is in some ways the opposite of what the thread is about).

You play with the "Damsel in Distress" archetype by making the Damsel the _Seductive Muse_ wooing her enemies into submission and then using them to get what she wants from the male characters.  Or making her the _Nurterer_ and seeing how that plays out with her captives.  But so long as "Damsel in Distress" is the only female archetype that you see, your options are sorely limited.  Doing anything else means doing something entirely new to you, and not just tinkering with the familiar.

That's why I'm more curious at the moment about archetypes as you've defined the term.


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## Chilari

This video discusses damsels in distress as relates to video games, but is relevant here too:


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## Feo Takahari

Edit: Forget it, I'll drop this. I'm not really sure what we're arguing about at this point, anyway.


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## Mindfire

Chilari said:


> This video discusses damsels in distress as relates to video games, but is relevant here too:
> 
> *snip*



Oh. _Her._ Ugh. Her Lego/toys video pissed me off. Apparently, making Lego sets based on Batman and Lord of the Rings means that Legos are sexist and eeeevil. And so are action figures, nerf guns, and absolutely anything cool marketed to boys. She can keep her rhetoric, and I'll keep my Transformers thank you very much.


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## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> Oh. _Her._ Ugh. Her Lego/toys video pissed me off. Apparently, making Lego sets based on Batman and Lord of the Rings means that Legos are sexist and eeeevil. And so are action figures, nerf guns, and absolutely anything cool marketed to boys. She can keep her rhetoric, and I'll keep my Transformers thank you very much.



_Ad hominem_ arguments aren't very effective. If you disagree with what she says about damsels in distress in the video Chilari linked, why not address those points specifically and tell us why you disagree with them?


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## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> _Ad hominem_ arguments aren't very effective. If you disagree with what she says about damsels in distress in the video Chilari linked, why not address those points specifically and tell us why you disagree with them?



I'm not making an argument, ad hominem or otherwise. I'm merely expressing my distaste for her work and giving fair warning that all my responses will be colored by that distaste. 

_However_, if you do want me to construct an actual argument regarding her videos (specifically the ones on toys as I haven't watched the others), I can do so.


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## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> I'm not making an argument, ad hominem or otherwise. I'm merely expressing my distaste for her work and giving fair warning that all my responses will be colored by that distaste.
> 
> _However_, if you do want me to construct an actual argument regarding her videos (specifically the ones on toys as I haven't watched the others), I can do so.



It would probably be more pertinent to the point of the thread to do so. And even more pertinent if you watched the one linked, that prompted your comment, and made statements directed specifically toward that one, since that one is more on-topic to the present discussion than videos about gender-biased marketing of toys.


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## Sheilawisz

After reading the thread from the start, I wanted to share my point of view to describe how I deal with all of this in my own Fantasy worlds:

_In my first Fantasy trilogy:_ This story (and also the second that I wrote) takes place in worlds inhabited not by Homo Sapiens or others, but by a species of my own creation called Aylars. These Aylar creatures look a little similar to humans, except that they have differences like huge colorful eyes, a furry tail, claws instead of hands, fangs and other things.

Most Aylars are female, and they range in height from 5'8'' to 6'4''. There is only one male for every seven females, but these males (known as Guardians) stand well over 12' tall and weigh as much as a huge polar bear.

This results in a society that is heavily feminine and controlled by females, because the Guardians have a separate society of their own and they usually live outside of cities and towns. The societies are ruled by Queens, and the family names are passed down from mother to daughter exclusively.

Aylars (not referred to as female Aylars, just Aylars) are very respected and looked after by the Guardians, and they engage in all types of professions and activities which includes going to wars. They are also fierce and sadistic in nature, because this is a very powerful and dangerous species.

The Mages living in these worlds are Aylars with the difference that they have this powerful Magic that normal Aylars do not have, and they also have a society ruled by Queens. The Mages allow very few Guardians to live in their cities, and these few Guardians consider themselves lucky to live and serve for the Mages.

Well, that's what it is like in my Fantasy worlds... what do you think?

I want to describe the same, but about my _Joan of England_ trilogy, in a different post =)


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## Mindfire

My biggest issue with the video of hers in this thread is that she unnecessarily characterizes this as a difference between male and female characters when in reality I think it's more a difference between _primary_/_main_ characters and _secondary_ characters. Sex is just incidental. Or to put it another way, her video is doing the equivalent of arguing that *Batman* Begins should have focused more time on the characterization of Rachel Dawes, and that its failure to do so makes it somehow deficient. I disagree. The story is about the main character. The story _does_ revolve around the actions of the hero. That's what "hero" means. Criticizing a story for doing that seems misguided. Side characters get captured and have to be rescued. Male or female, it's what they do.


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> My biggest issue with the video of hers in this thread is that she unnecessarily characterizes this as a difference between male and female characters when in reality I think it's more a difference between _primary_/_main_ characters and _secondary_ characters.



But if you have a situation where, in the genre, you've got an 80/20 split of these characters along gender lines, then whether you call it "primary/secondary" or "male/female" you've still got the same underlying problem.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> But if you have a situation where, in the genre, you've got an 80/20 split of these characters along gender lines, then whether you call it "primary/secondary" or "male/female" you've still got the same underlying problem.



Not really. Most of the video games she discusses are marketed toward boys. Boys typically want to play as male characters. I know this from experience. Therefore, by default, any female characters who appear will be secondary characters. To criticize female secondary characters for being secondary characters in such a situation seems absurd.


----------



## Mindfire

Also, I just noticed, she names the dozens of games that Peach _has_ been a playable character in, but then dismisses them because they "don't count", since they're not part of the "main Mario series." How convenient.


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> Not really. Most of the video games she discusses are marketed toward boys. Boys typically want to play as male characters. I know this from experience. Therefore, by default, any female characters who appear will be secondary characters. To criticize female secondary characters for being secondary characters in such a situation seems absurd.



This is a standard argument, but I think it is flawed. First, there are a lot of women in the customer based, as evidenced by all of the discussion of the issue by women gamers, readers of fantasy, and so on. Second, it's circular and a self-fulfilling prophecy. We'll construct these things in a gender-biased way under the idea that they're marketed to males, and if females don't get on board we'll take that as evidence it is only males who are interested in the products and therefore continue to market them in a gender-biased way toward males. 

The conception that this stuff is all for males and therefore concerns for gender parity are misplaced is a problematic rationale.

Third, even if you're only marketing to males your products still affect male views of gender because of how they portray females, so even if only males ever consume the product, you've still got a problem.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> Not really. Most of the video games she discusses are marketed toward boys. Boys typically want to play as male characters.



Statistically, games starring men make much more money than games starring women. However, statistically, games starring men have significantly larger marketing budgets. I'm not convinced that a significant number of men will actually avoid a game just because it stars a woman.

Come to think of it, _Tomb Raider_ sells pretty well, doesn't it? And I've heard _Bayonetta_ was a bestseller. I don't think that's necessarily because those series are more sexualized than, say, _Beyond Good and Evil_ or _The Longest Journey_--it could just be because they were marketed more aggressively.


----------



## Devor

Chilari said:


> This video discusses damsels in distress as relates to video games, but is relevant here too:



Of course, in Donkey Kong Country Returns, another mainstay Nintendo franchise, the role of damsel in distress has been filled by a stolen barrel of bananas.  There's two points I mean to make with that.  The first is the one being made in the video, that the damsel in distress - in its most stereotypical form - is just a McGuffin, hardly even a character, and stands alongside the girlfriend Trapped in the Refrigerator as just a motivation for the male hero.

But the second is that virtually no effort went into developing the plots or characters of many of the games in question.  Mario is as much a cliche in his role as Peach is in hers.  Platform video games and their characters are usually simple and formulaic, so they exaggerate everything, including the negative traits.  Many of the games they're referring to in the video only spend brief seconds to establish a story or a character's motivations, giving them only a few options to do something compelling.  Mario, by now, is deliberately parodying themselves when they continue to use it.  Video Game companies also afraid of changing the pattern they've established - the "core series" of a Mario video game is just an updated remake of the exact same game.

In that sense, much of what happened with the "damsel in distress" in video games would almost be comical, in that one silly motivation was successful, and was escalated by a million sequels and copy cats trying to outdo the first, with each copycat trying to do something edgier than the one before, escalating the handful of elements connected to the trope.  While it's easy to isolate it and discuss the impact it makes on women, for the most part it was a fad, not much more representative of our broader culture than beanie babies.

At the same time you were seeing a ten second clip of Mario rescuing Peach, there was also Super Mario RPG, followed by the Paper Mario series, which develop real characters, even for Peach.  In fact, RPGs represent a whole genre of video games developing solid characters, and none of them were mentioned in the video.  Terra was the main character of FFIII (FFVI), and Chrono Trigger opened with a damsel in distress character that would be hard to characterize negatively as she, eventually, returns the favor.

Not that any of this would apply to the StarFox game mentioned at the beginning, which shows a greater degree of awareness on the part of the designers about what they're doing and why.  I would assume they could have found a way to add the female hero to the Star Fox universe without stripping her of the role and giving her Snow White's apple - at a glance she seemed compelling enough, and I think the video said she was supposed to be one of two playable characters, after all.




Steerpike said:


> This is a standard argument, but I think it is flawed. First, there are a lot of women in the customer based, as evidenced by all of the discussion of the issue by women gamers, readers of fantasy, and so on. Second, it's circular and a self-fulfilling prophecy. We'll construct these things in a gender-biased way under the idea that they're marketed to males, and if females don't get on board we'll take that as evidence it is only males who are interested in the products and therefore continue to market them in a gender-biased way toward males.



That would be true if these were the only games ever produced.  But there have been console video games designed for women, and women didn't buy them in numbers large enough to warrant heavy development costs.  The kind of video games that a lot of women play are casual, the sort of game you see on Facebook, the iPad, or to some extent the Wii.

And when asked in surveys what they want from a video game, that's how women respond.  Loosely speaking, women don't want to spend hours playing a long and difficult video game.  But they'll flock to a game like Angry Birds, which a three-person team could develop in their back yard.

So if you want to develop a long and involving console game, with some exception you have to target men in order to justify the expense.


----------



## Steerpike

Devor said:


> That would be true if these were the only games ever produced.  But there have been console video games designed for women, and women didn't buy them in numbers large enough to warrant heavy development costs.  The kind of video games that a lot of women play are casual, the sort of game you see on Facebook, the iPad, or to some extent the Wii.



Perhaps. But if all of the other type of games are heavily gender-stereotyped such that they turn off women gamers, then the fact women gamers don't play them doesn't necessarily tell me a lot. Instead of designing a game specifically for women, which leads to other gender bias issues, I wonder what would happen if someone took one of these very popular games that only males are thought to play and removed any sexist imagery, storylines, and so on. Would guys suddenly stop playing them (are we that shallow?). Would more women start playing them? I don't know.


----------



## Ankari

Dragon Age 2 allows you to play as a female MC.  I don't think the sexualization has anything to do with its success.  I would have to say God of War I - III would do just fine without the brief sexualization.  Women love Zelda just as much as men (In fact, at any gaming conventions you see women dress up like Link).  Assassin's Creed could have been a woman as easily as a man, and the game would have done just as well.   Honestly, I think this whole argument is baseless. 

I don't like the attacks on the "Damsel in Distress" trope because, in the end, it's a valid trope.  I think that those who voice concern for the lack of diversified representation in recreational media need to ask for more of their preferred representation, not attack what has already come before.

Negative representation of both genders exist.  Turn on the TV from 6 to 10 PM EST and you'll get you're fill of man bashing.  I think all consumers need to do as I do: watch (read/play) what doesn't offend you and ignore the rest.  DVR is great for ignoring all the man-hate in commercials.


----------



## Devor

Steerpike said:


> Instead of designing a game specifically for women, which leads to other gender bias issues, I wonder what would happen if someone took one of these very popular games that only males are thought to play and removed any sexist imagery, storylines, and so on. Would guys suddenly stop playing them (are we that shallow?). Would more women start playing them? I don't know.



I'm not defending sexist imagery, only trying to put it in perspective.  There are serious offenses and minor ones.

Mostly likely, a game without much sexist imagery would do worse with teenagers but better with older males.  It would do marginally better with women.  It would probably do better all around, now that the video game customer base has aged sufficiently, unless removing the imagery broke with an existing brand image that the company was committed to.  Overall, it would depend on which market was being targeted by other elements of the game.


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## Feo Takahari

To some extent, the problem is arguably with producers and publishers not being willing to take risks and expand to new markets. (Which is a big part of the self-publishing revolution--I can go onto Keenspot and find premises mainstream publishers wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.)


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> This is a standard argument, but I think it is flawed. First, there are a lot of women in the customer based, as evidenced by all of the discussion of the issue by women gamers, readers of fantasy, and so on. Second, it's circular and a self-fulfilling prophecy. We'll construct these things in a gender-biased way under the idea that they're marketed to males, and if females don't get on board we'll take that as evidence it is only males who are interested in the products and therefore continue to market them in a gender-biased way toward males.
> 
> The conception that this stuff is all for males and therefore concerns for gender parity are misplaced is a problematic rationale.
> 
> Third, even if you're only marketing to males your products still affect male views of gender because of how they portray females, so even if only males ever consume the product, you've still got a problem.



I think you misunderstood what I'm getting at. I phrased that poorly. Let me try again: it seems that she's criticizing female secondary characters simply for _being_ secondary. As if in order to rectify a social injustice, all female characters must have as much agency as as the male character, and the fact that she isn't the protagonist has no bearing on the matter. AKA, "affirmative action characterization."


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> Let me try again: it seems that she's criticizing female secondary characters simply for _being_ secondary.



Yeah. I think it stems from the predominance of things. Any given instance of a marginalized female character might be something you look at and say "OK, well that's not who the story is about. Whatever." But when you look at the genre in its totality and see how heavily it is skewed that way, it raises questions.

As a hypothetical, think about this. Suppose you took every single instance of marginalization and stereotypical or sexist representation of women in fantasy, and replaced them with marginalized black characters, or overt racist depictions of black characters, or stereotypical representations of some erroneous idea of what a black person is like. As a black man, would you be as much a fan of the genre as you are now? Would you be buying as many of the products? In one or two cases here or there you might say "Whatever, that's just not the main character" (at least, you might say it for secondary characters; it doesn't work for stereotypical or racist depictions, whether secondary or not). I think that's similar in many ways to how a lot of women feel when they're trying to get into fantasy gaming, graphic novels, books, and so on. When they're trying to get into things that occupy "geek culture" in general, in fact.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Steerpike said:


> As a hypothetical, think about this. Suppose you took every single instance of marginalization and stereotypical or sexist representation of women in fantasy, and replaced them with marginalized black characters, or overt racist depictions of black characters, or stereotypical representations of some erroneous idea of what a black person is like. As a black man, would you be as much a fan of the genre as you are now? Would you be buying as many of the products? In one or two cases here or there you might say "Whatever, that's just not the main character" (at least, you might say it for secondary characters; it doesn't work for stereotypical or racist depictions, whether secondary or not).



He's spoken about this already, and it was a decent post, so I'll quote it:



> I lacked for black superheroes, so I started drawing my own. Eventually I dropped drawing and moved to writing and transitioned from superhero/sci-fi to fantasy. What I wanted wasn't available, so I decided to create it. I stand by my statement that, pragmatically speaking, you're going to get more mileage from encouraging minorities to create fiction than by encouraging non-minorities to tell our stories for us.


----------



## Devor

Feo Takahari said:


> To some extent, the problem is arguably with producers and publishers not being willing to take risks and expand to new markets. (Which is a big part of the self-publishing revolution--I can go onto Keenspot and find premises mainstream publishers wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.)



It's more that certain video game series have branded themselves into a niche, where they've escalated certain elements to the point where they can't turn around anymore.  I'm not thinking of Mario and the "Damsel in Distress" with this so much as I am the more edgy and risque video games which - well - I can't even think of names because I don't play them.


----------



## Nihal

One thing that bothers me way more than the reoccurring Damsel in Distress: The Faux Action Girl.

You could argue that it's a bad writing problem (and I agree), but I don't think it's _only_ this. If I had to guess I would say it's also the writing a "woman" instead of a "person" problem.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> Yeah. I think it stems from the predominance of things. Any given instance of a marginalized female character might be something you look at and say "OK, well that's not who the story is about. Whatever." But when you look at the genre in its totality and see how heavily it is skewed that way, it raises questions.
> 
> As a hypothetical, think about this. Suppose you took every single instance of marginalization and stereotypical or sexist representation of women in fantasy, and replaced them with marginalized black characters, or overt racist depictions of black characters, or stereotypical representations of some erroneous idea of what a black person is like. As a black man, would you be as much a fan of the genre as you are now? Would you be buying as many of the products? In one or two cases here or there you might say "Whatever, that's just not the main character" (at least, you might say it for secondary characters; it doesn't work for stereotypical or racist depictions, whether secondary or not). I think that's similar in many ways to how a lot of women feel when they're trying to get into fantasy gaming, graphic novels, books, and so on. When they're trying to get into things that occupy "geek culture" in general, in fact.



I'm not sure you can make an accurate comparison to racism (which fantasy has been accused of, but that's another topic entirely). Racism is more an "additive" offense, whereas the video is arguing against "subtractive" offenses. What do I mean by this? Well something is seen as racist because of something that is present versus something being absent. For example, the Twins in Transformers 2 have been called out as racist because the _have_ caricatured "black" behavioral patterns. They _exhibit_ a racist stereotype. This makes racism relatively easy to spot and less easy to confuse with something else.

By contrast, this damsel business is a _subtractive_ offense, notable because the character _lacks_ something. In this case, agency. Whereas with racism, the presence of racist stereotypes is quickly identifiable as racism, a female character's lack of agency can be attributed to multiple possible explanations, such as her simply being a secondary character. As a result, it's a bit harder to tell what is really sexist (marginalized female character) from what is just natural story dynamics (secondary character who just happens to be female).

And the only way to put an airtight seal on that issue is what Ms. Sarkeesian seems to be advocating: female characters cannot _ever_ be secondary. Just in case. That solution doesn't agree with me, and I think going case-by-case is a better approach than making sweeping condemnations of every female character who needs to be rescued ever.


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## WyrdMystic

Part of it is also lag - as in fantasy roles are male dominant because they have been for a long time, so it will take a long time for things to balance out a bit more - imagine 1 million books on one side ot the scales and for every 2 books added to other side of the scales, one more is added to the original pile.


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## Mindfire

I'm flattered by Feo's quoting me, and he (I?) makes a good point. The best way forward is to foster a creative environment that welcomes a variety of creators, which will in turn lead to a variety of stories and innovations across genres and mediums. More than sexism, the damsel trope exhibits a lack of creativity and fresh ideas IMO.


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## Chilari

I raised the damsel in distress video because I feel it's a trope that appears frequently in fantasy fiction too, and the reason it is bad is well explained in that video: it removes female agency and makes her role male centric. The sidekick issue does not apply to the same degree as in video games as not everything has to be protagonist-driven outside video games. But video games are not what is at discussion here; improving fantasy fiction is. Damsels in distress are worse in novels than video games because there is no excuse, yet they remain as prevalent.

Can we please keep the discussion away from dismissing the need for better female characters in whatever context and focus more on improving them. please remember that dismissive language is very off putting to the female posters here trying to contribute and if indeed you think it's involving under represented voices to present under represented characters that what is needed, dismissing our concerns is counter productive.


----------



## saellys

In the hopes of turning this back to women in fantasy (and because I'm really really tired of threads getting locked), there was discussion a few pages ago about women in military roles and how realistic one could make it while still representing characters as distinctively male or female. Steerpike mentioned _Sheepfarmer's Daughter_ again, and I want to point out one (very crude) distinction Elizabeth Moon established early on: herbal contraceptives are available on every table in the mess hall. One minor character washed out of the army because she didn't take hers and got pregnant. 

That's a pretty extreme example, but Moon's cast is so broad that it embraces a comprehensive cross section of masculinity and femininity and every shade between. Furthermore, Moon was a US marine in the 1960s--I don't think I could imagine a more male-dominated environment. In her Paksenarrion books, she got as close to a gender/race/sexuality utopia as I've ever seen in fantasy, but that doesn't mean there weren't still bad apples in the bunch (Paks was sexually assaulted early in the story). There are quite a few female soldiers in her military structure, and the only person who commented on it was essentially a slack-jawed yokel Paks encountered herding pigs in the woods. Moon wrote a world that feels recognizable and whole, but is free from that baggage we've been talking about.


----------



## Zero Angel

Thread got a bit derailed there with the damsel in distress in video games video. I found it interesting and must have had blinders on because I didn't see any "call to action" that others took offense to. 

I'd just like to say that all of these threads have been very useful in that they make us think about these issues. I grew up in make-believe worlds so I was always pretty sheltered from the existence of sexism, racism, etcism. It's an issue for me because to this day my default thinking is that everyone gets along and that there are no issues. This makes me somewhat blind to things such as female characters being no better than objects in some (many?) of the most popular video games. 

My first novel had strong female characters but I see that I never showed that they were strong. Their stories were secondary to the story of Val & Uriel's friendship, which was the central story I wanted to tell. In this story, the other characters (both male and female) exist primarily to develop these two characters. The main two are reacting to the existence of the others more than anything, which just goes to show that they (being everyone else) are well-developed.

Again, I don't have a big problem with this because the focus was on the two friends. In the subsequent books, I revisit the characters of the first and flesh them out more, along with introducing new characters, developing them to the point they become strong characters in actuality and not just in planning. 

Still, being exposed to these arguments and thinking about all of these things is helpful for all of us I think. Whether you're like me and even though you know there are issues, are basically blind to problems, or you're actively trying to change the status quo, or whatever you are, discussing these things the way we have been doing the past few threads has been helpful I hope. I have found them helpful anyway. 

I was pretty sickened by the New 52 link, and more glad than ever that I don't consume comic books anymore (although that's because of the soap opera never-ending quality inherent in their serialization than anything else; if I had still been consuming comic books, I'd hope that seeing Starfire like that would put me off them for the rest of my life).


----------



## Philip Overby

The point of this thread is discuss how to improve women's characterization in fantasy, but I don't see too many people suggesting ways they've seen authors approach this topic or how they have, other than bringing up Elizabeth Moon.


----------



## Nebuchadnezzar

Not sure it contributes much, but one great book with lots of good female characters (strong, weak and otherwise) is The Ladies of Mandrigyn by Barbara Hambly.  This one has tough warrior women, female cowards and backstabbers, devious women spell binders, noble hero types, etc.  all in the context of a very strong, interesting and relatable male MC, the barbarian mercenary captain Sunwolf.  I'd recommend this one for anyone who wants top-notch female characters who aren't grinding some gender-specific axe.


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## Feo Takahari

Phil the Drill said:


> The point of this thread is discuss how to improve women's characterization in fantasy, but I don't see too many people suggesting ways they've seen authors approach this topic or how they have, other than bringing up Elizabeth Moon.



Well, to me, creating more interesting female characters is part and parcel of creating more interesting characters in general. For instance, one of the stories I've posted online has as its villain a repentant murderer on a redemption quest, with the catch that her "redemption" requires the torture and forced repentance of other sinners. She's not a standard church-militant villain, or a standard villain at all--she firmly believes that she's no better than other sinners, she tries to help those around her, and she opposes petty cruelty--and as such, she's not a standard female villain.


----------



## Philip Overby

Feo Takahari said:


> Well, to me, creating more interesting female characters is part and parcel of creating more interesting characters in general.



This is something I mentioned in the last thread and has more to do with being aware of making all your characters more interesting rather than just one type.


----------



## Feo Takahari

But what else is there to say that's meaningful? I don't think you can come up with some special method to make female characters more interesting--you need to address the whole problem, including male characters (who I think are often even more boring, despite getting more to do in the plot.)


----------



## Nebuchadnezzar

Another female character with an interesting/non-standard story arc is Cawti from Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series.  When Brust got divorced from his wife IRL, Vlad got divorced from Cawti, who like Vlad is basically an assassin with super-powers.  A truly phenomenal example, in the fantasy genre, of exploring male/female relations and husband/wife relations without making either gender the bad guy but simply telling a story about people.  Cawti gets surprisingly evenhanded treatment, especially if you assume Brust as author might be expected to hold a grudge or engage in special pleading.  A testament to Brust and (perhaps) to his wife.


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## Penpilot

Phil the Drill said:


> The point of this thread is discuss how to improve women's characterization in fantasy, but I don't see too many people suggesting ways they've seen authors approach this topic or how they have, other than bringing up Elizabeth Moon.



Well to me George RR Martin handles this well. I'll be deliberately vague so I don't spoil anything and I encourage others to be careful if discussing this series. 

Isolating things to something more manageable for discussion, the two sisters Sansa and Arya, you could characterise Sansa as the typical damsel in distress and Arya as the tomboy when the whole series begins. Sansa was an infuriatingly stupid girl who rankled me to no end when I read her parts. I'm half way through the second book and as she's developed, she became less so and is beginning to show more of her internal strength while still remaining true to her character. Arya... well she's kind of a ninja now, but with her own flaws.

The reason I bring this up is it's about balancing the representation. Now you don't have to have two major characters like above representing strong and weak, but I think representation is key. What I mean by that is let's say your main character is a wishy washy weak female that falls dead center into a bad stereotype. I think just showing even a minor female character in one instance that isn't that stereotype helps to point out that that weak female character isn't a representation of females as a whole. That weak character is just a singular instance of a weak female. That's how I think things can be handled.


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## Philip Overby

What's interesting about you bringing up Martin is that a lot of people on the surface may see him as one of the cardinal sinners as it comes to representing women poorly.  But I'd argue that he has some of the most remarkable women in all of fantasy if you dig deeper.  Yes, there are instances of prostitutes, "sea-wives," and the like, but these are all minor characters for the most part.  

Even though Sansa appears the typical defenseless damsel in distress, she is remarkably strong for someone who suffers so much.  When you dig deeper behind just this surface representation of the characters, you can see that Martin put a lot of thought into how they develop throughout the story.  Yes, Sansa is infuriating at the beginning, but she learns and grows in incredible ways.

I agree with Penpilot in saying not all women in stories should be represented as strong characters.  Some _should_ be weak in different ways to make the strong characters pop out so much more.

For instance, say you had a female character that was in a gang of women thieves.  The others kill and maim without mercy for their victims, use sex to lure them to their deaths, or other such unscrupulous methods to steal money.  However, the main character only takes what she needs and doesn't want to hurt anyone, actually stopping to help those wounded by her gang.   If this one character shows that she's deeper and more complex than others who are the same gender and "job" as she is, then it makes her shine in the story more as a compelling character.


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## Devor

Phil the Drill said:


> The point of this thread is discuss how to improve women's characterization in fantasy, but I don't see too many people suggesting ways they've seen authors approach this topic or how they have, other than bringing up Elizabeth Moon.



I suppose I could talk a bit about what I'm trying to do with one of the women in my story.  I'm not sure how much people can learn from it or not.  It's different, but I'm not sure that it would work as an archetype for anyone else.

To start, the two MCs are a recently married couple, so there's a different relationship story than you see with most novels.  It's after guy-meets-girl.  Their relationship develops as the peaceful life they're supposed to have together is interrupted by the events of the story.  In particular, these events are changing both of them, and the story between them is how their relationship survives when they start to feel like they're with different people.

Both of them are highly skilled individuals.  He is a martial arts student from a peasant home.  She is a guard for the independent prefecture who has just been given a small grant of land for her services.

She excels as a guard because she is a woman, and not by being a guy in woman's clothing.  The landscape is rough, and their horses are part avian (weaker bones makes them susceptible to differences in weight).  As a lightweight mounted archer, her horse can take her faster and farther in this setting, while a heavier rider faces severe limitations.  So it's her feminine qualities which are being recognized in her position.  ((edit:  My wife points out that this statement only shows her feminine build, but her personality is reasonably more people-focused as well.))

I'm loosely expecting at least four chapters to be from her POV to show us what happens when her duties take her away from the main events.  Once, for example, she plays the role of Gandalf - she has been sent out as one of the riders to persuade an ally to join the battle, and she has to return with help or everyone will die.

For the most part, she is the one with the duty to fight and take charge, while her husband has more personal ties to the causes behind the conflict.


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## Sheilawisz

A description of the portrayal of female characters in my _Joan of England_ trilogy:

This is a story dominated by female characters, where male characters are scarce and have a rather low importance. The MC is a fifteen-year old medieval princess that travels to the modern times, and her adoptive father and boyfriend are nearly the only important male characters in the story.

She has an adoptive sister and two best friends, all teenage girls, and they are part of a highly secret and military-style organization that researches Magic and gateways to other universes.

All the Mages in training are girls in their teens, they wear black trench coats and, even though they usually live and act like normal girls of their age, they are capable of performing very dangerous secret missions and also slay magical monsters (and people!) when necessary.

They have courage, pride, magical powers, swords, battle skills, a strong commander, plots to take over the world and everything, very far from being ladies in distress =)


----------



## PaulineMRoss

Mindfire said:


> By contrast, this damsel business is a _subtractive_ offense, notable because the character _lacks_ something. In this case, agency.



This is such a good point. It's very easy to miss the negative female characterisations when it's a quality that's missing, rather than something that's there in front of you. I've read so many books where there are female characters out there, doing stuff, wielding swords or creating magic, going on the quest right alongside the men, yet when the evil whatsits leap out of the bushes, guess who they capture? And why is the woman on the quest anyway? Because a bloke told her to, or she's following her boyfriend, or she's escaping from the marriage her father planned for her, or a bloke told her NOT to go and she's - you know, rebellious and all.

One problem here is the setting. If a story is set in the traditional medieval era, the patriarchal system is built-in and it's extremely hard for an author to find a way to work a truly independent woman into it. Women were (mostly) subservient to men in all levels of society, and it takes a bit more work to find one who can go on that quest without falling into a stereotype - the rebellious princess, the warrior babe, the witch or the whore. Mrs Ordinary Tradesman can't simply abandon the home and family and travel round the countryside with impunity in the way that a bloke can. It's not impossible to find ways around it, but it takes ingenuity, and so many authors fall into the standard setting with the standard tropes because it's easier.

There are authors capable of overcoming that. Daniel Abraham's Dagger and Coin series has a female banker in a patriarchal society, for instance. And there are a number of authors writing sensible female characters with agency. Andrea K HÃ¶st is one who writes genuinely gender-neutral worlds. Glenda Larke is another whose female characters may get captured, but they escape all by themselves (even when very pregnant, in one case). I'm reserving judgment on George R R Martin until I see where he takes his characters in the end (if we all live that long).

As someone else said, the real virtue of these threads is not that anyone rushes off to rewrite anything, but that we are all thinking about the issues raised, and perhaps that will inform people's writing in the future. And if things get a little heated, that just indicates that people have strong feelings about it. Which (in my opinion) is why we SHOULD be talking about it.


----------



## Zero Angel

PaulineMRoss said:


> There are authors capable of overcoming that. Daniel Abraham's Dagger and Coin series has a female banker in a patriarchal society, for instance. And there are a number of authors writing sensible female characters with agency. Andrea K HÃ¶st is one who writes genuinely gender-neutral worlds. Glenda Larke is another whose female characters may get captured, but they escape all by themselves (even when very pregnant, in one case). I'm reserving judgment on George R R Martin until I see where he takes his characters in the end (if we all live that long).
> 
> As someone else said, the real virtue of these threads is not that anyone rushes off to rewrite anything, but that we are all thinking about the issues raised, and perhaps that will inform people's writing in the future. And if things get a little heated, that just indicates that people have strong feelings about it. Which (in my opinion) is why we SHOULD be talking about it.



I'm pretty sure that even if we're not all dead by the time the series finished, George R. R. Martin will be! 

I echo that thinking about these issues is valuable, but if things get a little heated, please step away from your keyboards people. We don't want to ruin our community. After the first Bechdel thread I had started putting people on my ignore list so that I wouldn't be offended by them and feel obliged to retort. During the second, I ended up removing people from the ignore list and haven't regretted it yet.


----------



## Ireth

PaulineMRoss said:


> I've read so many books where there are female characters out there, doing stuff, wielding swords or creating magic, going on the quest right alongside the men, yet when the evil whatsits leap out of the bushes, guess who they capture?



Heh. I've gender-flipped that a time or two in my own writings -- most of the time it's the men who get captured. At one point in my longest-running roleplay, the villains intentionally kidnapped a man to bait his wife, who had killed their father years ago. The wife had enough sense not to go after him (partly because she was pregnant), so the man's daughter went to his rescue instead (among others, both male and female), and held her own pretty well.


----------



## Mindfire

Ireth said:


> Heh. I've gender-flipped that a time or two in my own writings -- most of the time it's the men who get captured. At one point in my longest-running roleplay, the villains intentionally kidnapped a man to bait his wife, who had killed their father years ago. The wife had enough sense not to go after him (partly because she was pregnant), so the man's daughter went to his rescue instead (among others, both male and female), and held her own pretty well.



Well that's pretty cold.


----------



## Ireth

Mindfire said:


> Well that's pretty cold.



What is, the villains' tactics? I'd agree. The fact that the wife had killed the villains' father? She was protecting her husband; the villain's father had been trying to kill him. The fact that I mostly have men get kidnapped at all? Most of my characters are men, period.


----------



## Zero Angel

Ireth said:


> Heh. I've gender-flipped that a time or two in my own writings -- most of the time it's the men who get captured. At one point in my longest-running roleplay, the villains intentionally kidnapped a man to bait his wife, who had killed their father years ago. The wife had enough sense not to go after him (partly because she was pregnant), so the man's daughter went to his rescue instead (among others, both male and female), and held her own pretty well.



Your post made me think of something else that is usually pretty cliche. Even if we do have female characters with agency, they are almost always the first in-universe with that agency! That is, generally we don't have a situation like the one you're describing where something a female did before the story started is the reason for the story existing. If the females do have agency in a story, they are almost always reacting to a male-generated situation. 

Obviously, your example does NOT suffer from this.


----------



## Zero Angel

Ireth said:


> What is, the villains' tactics? I'd agree. The fact that the wife had killed the villains' father? She was protecting her husband; the villain's father had been trying to kill him. The fact that I mostly have men get kidnapped at all? Most of my characters are men, period.



I don't want to speak for Mindfire, but I assume he meant that the wife wouldn't go to rescue the husband. 

This is a cliche yet again! That the children or unborn are more important in some way than someone that has lived their life, taken the time to have experiences and training, etc. This is the opposite of how we feel about pretty much ANYTHING else in real life or in books. Do we care when a new character is introduced only to be snatched away? Do we fret more over the character that we've spent 15 minutes generating or the one that we spent 15 minutes generating followed by years of campaigning? Do we sacrifice the CEO to save the entry-level worker?

Interesting points!


----------



## Ireth

Zero Angel said:


> Your post made me think of something else that is usually pretty cliche. Even if we do have female characters with agency, they are almost always the first in-universe with that agency! That is, generally we don't have a situation like the one you're describing where something a female did before the story started is the reason for the story existing. If the females do have agency in a story, they are almost always reacting to a male-generated situation.
> 
> Obviously, your example does NOT suffer from this.



Well, to be fair, the woman in question only killed the guy after he attacked her family while hallucinating (he's a vampire who had just drunk from a mage; their blood acts like LSD for vamps). But she knew about the situation and had been defending others beforehand. Her husband only showed up later, and that's when things got a bit out of hand, necessitating the vampire's death for safety's sake.


----------



## Ireth

Zero Angel said:


> I don't want to speak for Mindfire, but I assume he meant that the wife wouldn't go to rescue the husband.
> 
> This is a cliche yet again! That the children or unborn are more important in some way than someone that has lived their life, taken the time to have experiences and training, etc. This is the opposite of how we feel about pretty much ANYTHING else in real life or in books. Do we care when a new character is introduced only to be snatched away? Do we fret more over the character that we've spent 15 minutes generating or the one that we spent 15 minutes generating followed by years of campaigning? Do we sacrifice the CEO to save the entry-level worker?
> 
> Interesting points!



Well, the wife was none too pleased about having to stay behind and let others rescue her husband -- she wanted to go, but was pressured into staying where she'd be safe for the sake of the baby (which admittedly was not very developed yet; she was only a few weeks along, and had just found out at all). She later faced the same conundrum when an unrelated conflict sparked an all-out battle, and this time she acknowledged the danger of fighting while pregnant (this time she was several months along). It's worth noting that the woman is also completely deaf, and while she knows how to wield a sword, one-on-one fighting is vastly different than melee fighting.


----------



## Mindfire

Ireth said:


> What is, the villains' tactics? I'd agree. The fact that the wife had killed the villains' father? She was protecting her husband; the villain's father had been trying to kill him. The fact that I mostly have men get kidnapped at all? Most of my characters are men, period.



I mean the wife's attitude toward her husband. 

Daughter: They took dad! 
Mother: *shrug*  
Daughter: Don't you care? 
Mother: Meh. F#%& it.
Daughter: O.O 
Mother: What's your problem? 
Daughter: Daddy! :'(

Maybe I'm exaggerating.


----------



## Ireth

Mindfire said:


> I mean the wife's attitude toward her husband.
> 
> Daughter: They took dad!
> Mother: *shrug*
> Daughter: Don't you care?
> Mother: Meh. F#%& it.
> Daughter: O.O
> Mother: What's your problem?
> Daughter: Daddy! :'(
> 
> Maybe I'm exaggerating.



As I said in post #96, that was not the case at all. It was more like this:

Daughter: They took Dad!
Mother: Well, let's go save him!
Daughter: Nuh-uh, not you. You're pregnant, you need to think of the baby.
Mother: He's my husband, d*mmit!
Daughter: It'll be okay. Me and these people will go get him, and you'll stay here with these other people in case the bad guys try to find you themselves.
Mother: *grumblemumble* Fine. But I'm not going to like it.


----------



## Mindfire

Ireth said:


> As I said in post #96, that was not the case at all. It was more like this:
> 
> Daughter: They took Dad!
> Mother: Well, let's go after him!
> Daughter: Nuh-uh, not you. You're pregnant, you need to think of the baby.
> Mother: He's my husband, d*mmit!
> Daughter: It'll be okay. Me and these people will go get him, and you'll stay here with these other people in case the bad guys try to find you themselves.
> Mother: *grumblemumble*



I was ninja'd and didn't see that post until after I submitted. Lol.


----------



## Penpilot

PaulineMRoss said:


> One problem here is the setting. If a story is set in the traditional medieval era, the patriarchal system is built-in and it's extremely hard for an author to find a way to work a truly independent woman into it. Women were (mostly) subservient to men in all levels of society, and it takes a bit more work to find one who can go on that quest without falling into a stereotype - the rebellious princess, the warrior babe, the witch or the whore. Mrs Ordinary Tradesman can't simply abandon the home and family and travel round the countryside with impunity in the way that a bloke can. It's not impossible to find ways around it, but it takes ingenuity, and so many authors fall into the standard setting with the standard tropes because it's easier.



Again I'll pull out Game of Thrones as a prime example of a patriarchal society where women are strong from the beginning. Look at Cersi and Katrina, two women who wield a lot of power and influence. They've learned to use their strength and power within the confines of a patriarchal society.


----------



## saellys

Penpilot said:


> Again I'll pull out Game of Thrones as a prime example of a patriarchal society where women are strong from the beginning. Look at Cersi and Katrina, two women who wield a lot of power and influence. They've learned to use their strength and power within the confines of a patriarchal society.



You mean Catelyn? 

She and Cersei are two magnificent examples of giving female characters as much to work with as males. Both would cite their families as their primary motivation for everything they do, which would seemingly drop them square in the middle of the "mother" archetype, but I don't think anyone can argue that either of them stays there. And importantly, both of them _mess up_, which is something I don't think enough "positive" female characters do. Catelyn makes the mistake of 



Spoiler: A Game of Thrones



taking Tyrion hostage and essentially starting a war.


 Cersei's vanity and jealousy, passed off by her as concern for her children, results in 



Spoiler: A Dance with Dragons



the Tyrells taking King's Landing without bloodshed.



Anyone who reserves judgment about ASOIAF's female characters until the end of the series is missing out on a whole lot of awesome stuff right now.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Agreed on GRRM's female characters.

I also find it interesting that Cersei tried to teach Sansa how to wield feminine power. Originally Sansa's character annoyed me but her character arc has taken a slow turn...she exhibits a unique strength, very different from the other women.

Talking about distinction, Arya & Dany are both very different from the others as well. The great lessons on character in this work come from how very different they all are (in both genders).


----------



## saellys

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Agreed on GRRM's female characters.
> 
> I also find it interesting that Cersei tried to teach Sansa how to wield feminine power. Originally Sansa's character annoyed me but her character arc has taken a slow turn...she exhibits a unique strength, very different from the other women.
> 
> Talking about distinction, Arya & Dany are both very different from the others as well. The great lessons on character in this work come from how very different they all are (in both genders).



Cersei tried, and Littlefinger is trying, and what Sansa is actually learning is completely different and far more powerful. I adore the way her story is unfolding. 

What I find most interesting about GRRM's entire female cast is the relatively low proportion who subvert their gender roles. Arya and Brienne are the major ones, with Asha and the Mormont ladies in the background. Every woman in the series is _reacting_ to the male-dominated culture in which they are steeped, but very few take it as far as wearing armor. I'm so tired of the mishandling of the "warrior babe" in fantasy that upon starting ASOIAF, I instinctively found it more interesting to read about the women who wield power without transgressing gender roles. I still find Arya and Brienne and Asha and the Mormont ladies really interesting, but not quite as compelling as Daenerys, for instance.


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## PaulineMRoss

saellys said:


> You mean Catelyn? She and Cersei are two magnificent examples of giving female characters as much to work with as males. [...] Anyone who reserves judgment about ASOIAF's female characters until the end of the series is missing out on a whole lot of awesome stuff right now.



Point taken. Martin's great strength is his characters, I'll agree. But to my mind, it's no good having awesome female characters for 90% of a series if at the end they all get tucked back into stereotypical boxes. Which is another way of saying: I don't know where the hell Martin is going with ASOIAF, and I'm not at all confident that he has much idea, either.


----------



## Kit

saellys said:


> and Littlefinger is trying,



The only thing Littlefinger is "trying" with regard to Sansa is trying to get into her skirt. Oh, and her title/land, too.


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## Penpilot

saellys said:


> You mean Catelyn?



*sheepishly* umm yeah. I have no idea how I messed that up. 



T.Allen.Smith said:


> I also find it interesting that Cersei tried to teach Sansa how to wield feminine power. Originally Sansa's character annoyed me but her character arc has taken a slow turn...she exhibits a unique strength, very different from the other women.



Yeah couldn't agree more. It's kind of cool to see a female exerting power without having to resort to brute force. All the different forms of power exhibited in the books is incredibly interesting. You look at Sansa, Arya, and Daenerys, and as the story progresses, they each rise from weaker beginnings and become stronger and stronger but in different ways. They're not all sword wielders and they're not all temptresses.


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## Mindfire

What's clearly needed in fantasy...



Spoiler: is this!



is a sword wielding temptress! Amirite?


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## Jamber

...and yet none of the attention given to GRRM's female characters reduces the story importance or verisimilitude of male ones. It's a richer story for its strong female characterisations, with added complexity and (I think partly as a result) increased fanbase.


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## saellys

Kit said:


> The only thing Littlefinger is "trying" with regard to Sansa is trying to get into her skirt. Oh, and her title/land, too.



Yeah, he's probably the third or fourth skeeziest creeper in the whole series.


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## Mindfire

Hmm... I think a couple other posters have had a good idea. It's all well and good to discuss other people's work. But perhaps we stand to gain the most from discussing our own? After all, what good does it do to discuss something if it has no impact on how we ourselves write?


----------



## Ireth

Mindfire said:


> What's clearly needed in fantasy...
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler: is this!
> 
> 
> 
> is a sword wielding temptress! Amirite?



Heh, the backstory to my vampire novel actually has one of those. Saraid is a Leannan Sidhe, a type of Fae who targets artists for their creative energy, which she feeds on while inspiring their art. She takes a mortal named Caradoc to be her lover, and Caradoc's father Conall discovers them one night at an inn. Naturally, knowing the tendencies of Saraid's people to kill the artists they target rather than fall in love with them, Conall assumes the worst and tries to protect his son. It doesn't go too well for him. Saraid fights him, thinking he's trying to take Caradoc from her, and winds up stabbing Conall in the gut with an iron poker, pinning him to the floor while she escapes with Caradoc. Being a vampire, Conall doesn't die, but it's still super painful.


----------



## Mindfire

Wait, if she's a Fae, how can she touch an iron poker?


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## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> What's clearly needed in fantasy...
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler: is this!
> 
> 
> 
> is a sword wielding temptress! Amirite?



I've heard it argued that _Aeon Flux_ was a positive portrayal of female sexuality, since the protagonist is clearly masochistic but has standards and doesn't sleep with anything that moves. I never watched it, so I don't really know.

Edit: Thinking about this a bit more, I think the issue is that temptress types are usually characterized solely in what other characters get from them. There ought to be a little attention portrayed to what they get out of their role, and why they act "tempting" in the first place. (This is something I've personally approached in my series about succubi.)


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## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> I've heard it argued that _Aeon Flux_ was a positive portrayal of female sexuality, since the protagonist is clearly masochistic but has standards and doesn't sleep with anything that moves. I never watched it, so I don't really know.
> 
> Edit: Thinking about this a bit more, I think the issue is that temptress types are usually characterized solely in what other characters get from them. There ought to be a little attention portrayed to what they get out of their role, and why they act "tempting" in the first place. (This is something I've personally approached in my series about succubi.)



I also have sexual female antagonists. Sort of. 

The first one, Sitara, is an amazonian psychopath who leads an cult of female werecats called the Wendigo and gets a sadistic thrill out of breaking the will of men. The second, Clementia, is an aristocratic witch (also a psychopath) who just happens to have lust as a favored vice, much like some people do with alcohol or cigarettes. She doesn't get emotionally attached to her lovers though. Her husband casually murders one of them right in front of her and she reacts with mild annoyance. In both cases, their sexuality isn't really all that important aside from informing their respective mentalities.

I'm particularly interested in what our female posters will have to say about them. I will gladly provide more information on them and my other female characters upon request.


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## saellys

Clementia's attitude toward attachment sounds very much like my pansexual male MC's (for at least the first three quarters of _The Stone Front_). I can't think of a time I've specifically wanted to know more about a character's sexuality than the author chose to divulge, but when they do include details and manage to do it in a way that is neither gratuitous nor cheaply tantalizing, I tend to find it pretty valuable for understanding that character.


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## Subcreator

Sometimes I wonder if my depictions of women aren't the best. For instance, my female antagonist is an nymphomaniacal, pyromaniacal, and omnicidal megalomaniac who insists on having five husbands at a time (though this is because of a prophecy), whereas one of the main female protagonists is often treated horribly for something she didn't do. Of course, I tend to treat all my characters like crap, so they equal footing on that, and I have an equally insane male antagonist. Still, I try to make sure that I write them as people, rather than as "male character" or "female character."


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## Mindfire

saellys said:


> Clementia's attitude toward attachment sounds very much like my pansexual male MC's (for at least the first three quarters of _The Stone Front_). I can't think of a time I've specifically wanted to know more about a character's sexuality than the author chose to divulge, but when they do include details and manage to do it in a way that is neither gratuitous nor cheaply tantalizing, I tend to find it pretty valuable for understanding that character.



Tantalizing or titillating? I don't write titillation very well at all. All actual sex occurs offscreen.


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## Mindfire

Subcreator said:


> Sometimes I wonder if my depictions of women aren't the best. For instance, my female antagonist is an nymphomaniacal, pyromaniacal, and omnicidal megalomaniac who insists on having five husbands at a time.



O.O

Your villainess makes Sitara look _sane._


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## saellys

Mindfire said:


> Tantalizing or titillating? I don't write titillation very well at all. All actual sex occurs offscreen.



Tantalizing. As in "I'm going to dance around this subject and then pan to the curtains". A la Guy Gavriel Kay starting a chapter of _The Lions of Al-Rassan_ with a sentence about Jehane really enjoying sex, and proceeding to not include any sex, "offscreen" or otherwise, in the entire chapter. I'm not saying I want to read lots of sex or anything, but I get irritated when an author uses the possibility of future sex as an attention-grabbing opening and then fails to deliver. 

The other side of that coin is GRRM, who can get several pages into a sex scene before the reader even knows whether it's consensual. *shudder* Dude should stick to writing about food.


----------



## Zero Angel

saellys said:


> Tantalizing. As in "I'm going to dance around this subject and then pan to the curtains". A la Guy Gavriel Kay starting a chapter of _The Lions of Al-Rassan_ with a sentence about Jehane really enjoying sex, and proceeding to not include any sex, "offscreen" or otherwise, in the entire chapter. I'm not saying I want to read lots of sex or anything, but I get irritated when an author uses the possibility of future sex as an attention-grabbing opening and then fails to deliver.
> 
> The other side of that coin is GRRM, who can get several pages into a sex scene before the reader even knows whether it's consensual. *shudder* Dude should stick to writing about food.



He writes about food?

This is yet another reason I have a hard time reading GRRM anymore. I can handle dark, but not teased out to 98 years of the stuff. There's no happiness in the stories and GRRM jerks the reader (well, me, I don't know if other people feel the same way) around too much. People keep talking about how great his women are. I cringe in every chapter because more and more crap keeps happening to them. I'm not saying I'm OK with what's going on with the men, but Sansa, Arya, Brienne, Daenerys, Catelyn, et al. Well, it just sucks.


----------



## Subcreator

Mindfire said:


> O.O
> 
> Your villainess makes Sitara look _sane._



I am kind of going for insane with this one. Of course, this is also the story that has a pothead elf who's one of the *good guys.*


----------



## Mindfire

saellys said:


> Tantalizing. As in "I'm going to dance around this subject and then pan to the curtains". A la Guy Gavriel Kay starting a chapter of _The Lions of Al-Rassan_ with a sentence about Jehane really enjoying sex, and proceeding to not include any sex, "offscreen" or otherwise, in the entire chapter. I'm not saying I want to read lots of sex or anything, but I get irritated when an author uses the possibility of future sex as an attention-grabbing opening and then fails to deliver.



Now that's professional grade trolling, right there.  



saellys said:


> The other side of that coin is GRRM, who can get several pages into a sex scene before the reader even knows whether it's consensual. *shudder* Dude should stick to writing about food.



One of the many reasons Martin's work is... not for me.


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## Subcreator

Mindfire said:


> One of the many reasons Martin's work is... not for me.



I'm glad I'm not the only one. I stopped halfway through "A Game of Throne." It wasn't so much his depiction of women specifically, but there was too much squick in there. Whether you're depicting men, women, or fuzzy animals, good sense should be followed, and while some people like seeing black and gray (sometimes a very dark gray in Martin's case), I can't bring myself to do it. My characters are flawed, injured, and sometimes plain dumb, and the antagonists are about as bad as can be, but I still try to show people as people rather than distorted carnival masks.


----------



## saellys

That's extra funny considering your avatar. 

ASOIAF definitely isn't for everyone, but I've always been really impressed with how relatable he made even the most despicable antagonists. Everyone has a realistic motivation, except maybe Gregor Clegane and Ramsay Bolton--they're just pure evil.


----------



## Steerpike

I don't see Martin's people as non-people. When you read history books and see a lot of the horrible things people used to do to one another, I think a lot of what might make them seem distorted isn't really far-fetched given the _milieu_.


----------



## Subcreator

I might have gone too far in implying they weren't realistic. Perhaps his books are just too bleak for my tastes.


----------



## Ireth

Mindfire said:


> Wait, if she's a Fae, how can she touch an iron poker?



She protected her hand with a cloak so it wouldn't burn her.


----------



## Mindfire

Ireth said:


> She protected her hand with a cloak so it wouldn't burn her.



Oh. Okay then.


----------



## saellys

Subcreator said:


> I might have gone too far in implying they weren't realistic. Perhaps his books are just too bleak for my tastes.



That is definitely the word, and it only got worse after _Game_.


----------



## Mindfire

I keep telling you guys, everyone is going to die. _Everyone._


----------



## Jabrosky

I would submit my opinion on _A Game of Thrones_, but I think this thread has veered off-topic enough already. I would prefer to do so in another thread, perhaps in the Fantasy Novels section.


----------



## Nihal

Mindfire said:


> I keep telling you guys, everyone is going to die. _Everyone._



Yaaay! At least he'll take a break from describing food or diarrhea. Oh god.

Anyway, I like his females too.


----------



## saellys

I considered it all on-topic since we were talking about the portrayals of female characters, but I will happily join in on an ASOIAF thread in the Novels section!


----------



## Jabrosky

On second thought, I'll submit it here since I don't have enough to articulate for a separate thread's OP anyway.

I tried reading _A Game of Thrones_ 2-4 times, but could never get very far into it before feeling confused over what was going on. I am not completely sure why. I must admit the generic pseudo-medieval European setting is not my favorite, but then I don't have the heart to write off a whole series based on its cultural flavor. That sounds too close-minded.


----------



## Steerpike

I liked the first 4 a lot. Can't seem to get into Dance With Dragons.


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## Philip Overby

OK, we sort off got off track talking about Martin's work instead of talking about women in fantasy.  If it's not for you, then it's not for you.  

I think Martin's women are flawed, interesting, and powerful in many different ways.  If you only read the first book and give up half-way through, then you're not going to see how the character arc works for them.


----------



## Devor

Phil the Drill said:


> I think Martin's women are flawed, interesting, and powerful in many different ways.  If you only read the first book and give up half-way through, then you're not going to see how the character arc works for them.



I struggled with Dany a lot during most of the first book, mostly because she was so disconnected from the others, but also because she seemed like she was going to be a tool instead of a player.  Or else that it would be another of those, "You've done this to me, now I'm going to kill you and usurp your role in the book."  But the character arc is incredible, and I don't mean the dragon thing.

She goes from being a frightened tool, to accepting and embracing her role, to even developing a real fondness for the people who've been using her.  But she then takes all of that stuff which might look like weakness, and she turns it into a strength which helps her to come into her own role as queen.

She didn't simply "give up" and let them destroy her.  But nor did she simply flood with animosity towards her brother or her husband, not even towards the way they treat her as a woman, or her lot in life.  It wasn't a matter of, "Viserys, brother, you wanted the crown, now I'm going to get it for you."  Nor was it, "Viserys, you poser, now I'm going to take over your efforts and succeed where you failed."  Her relationship with her brother is complex, and so are her motivations going forward.

She's a strong woman and a strong player because she cared for the people in her life, could still recognize their wrongdoings, and embraced her role - Targaryen, Stormborn, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Khaleesi - until she made that role her own.

Maybe I'll look for an essay or an article to post later because I think there's a lot to say about Dany in Game of Thrones, and the broad strokes don't seem to cover it.


----------



## Philip Overby

I agree with a lot of what you said about Dany.  She's one of those characters people either seem to love or hate, and I think it has more to do with some elements of her plot and less with her character.  I think she's a pretty remarkable characters as well.  I'd go as far to say one of the best characters in modern fantasy.  I think she's underrated due to so many people loving Tyrion or the Stark children.  Maybe I'm just reading the wrong stuff, but Dany seems to be sort of an afterthought for some readers.  I think her arc in the first three books shows how to handle a "damsel in distress" character pretty well.

Since we're still discussing women in fantasy, I think we're still on a good track here, but I like saellys's suggestion to start a ASOIAF (spoiler tags or spoiler free I hope) thread where we can discuss all aspects of the series.  I've been wanting to get into some serious discussion about this series for some time and it just has never seemed to crop up around here.  And if it did, I totally missed it.


----------



## Steerpike

_Apropos_ of comments relating to why the issue matters, or whether it matters that certain media is marketed directly toward males and is therefore immune from criticism of gender bias:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...6/the-sexual-objectification-spillover-effect

It is but one reason as to why the issue is important, why something like the Bechdel Test _can_ be important (I'll point out that it was this inconsequential test that is directly responsible for spawning three threads and extensive commentary on the issue on this site alone), and why awareness of the issue is something that is of benefit to any Fantasy writer and to the genre as a whole.


----------



## Mindfire

This may be treading old ground, but what stops media separation from being a solution? There's already media that caters to boys, so all that's really needed is more media that caters to girls. Then the equation would balance and each side can consume its own media without interference from the other. I bring this up because I proposed this idea before and I didn't quite get a proper explanation of why it wouldn't work. And I'd really like to know why it wouldn't work. Logically, it seems that if each side disengaged from the other (women create media for women and men create media for men, with a mutual noninterference agreement) the imbalance should equalize and the gender media cold war should end.


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> This may be treading old ground, but what stops media separation from being a solution? There's already media that caters to boys, so all that's really needed is more media that caters to girls.



Separate but equal? I think we've tried that 

Seriously, though, all segregation does is perpetuate sterotyping, and as I pointed out above, male intake of media that sexualizes or marginalizes women impacts how males view and treat women, so again segregation of media leaves a problem.


----------



## Devor

Steerpike said:


> _Apropos_ of comments relating to why the issue matters, or whether it matters that certain media is marketed directly toward males and is therefore immune from criticism of gender bias:
> 
> http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...6/the-sexual-objectification-spillover-effect
> 
> It is but one reason as to why the issue is important, why something like the Bechdel Test _can_ be important (I'll point out that it was this inconsequential test that is directly responsible for spawning three threads and extensive commentary on the issue on this site alone), and why awareness of the issue is something that is of benefit to any Fantasy writer and to the genre as a whole.



The weird thing is, that research actually says nothing about whether the scantily clad image is a positive portrayal of the woman or a negative one.  It just says to the man, "Think about sex.  Great, now think about something else.  Gotcha!"  But that only says what we already know about the male brain.  The male brain tends to fixate on one thing at a time, and that's a basic component of male sexuality.  It isn't even fair to extrapolate that to the gender tropes we've been discussing, which may not even be sexualized.


----------



## Steerpike

Devor said:


> The weird thing is, that research actually says nothing about whether the scantily clad image is a positive portrayal of the woman or a negative one.  It just says to the man, "Think about sex.  Great, now think about something else.  Gotcha!"  But that only says what we already know about the male brain.  The male brain tends to fixate on one thing at a time, and that's a basic component of male sexuality.  It isn't even fair to extrapolate that to the gender tropes we've been discussing, which may not even be sexualized.



There's a lot more research out there on this and related topics. The point, however, is that even if males are the only ones consuming media they don't exist in a vacuum and the potrayals of women in the media can impact how males view females in their day to day lives.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> Separate but equal? I think we've tried that
> 
> Seriously, though, all segregation does is perpetuate sterotyping, and as I pointed out above, male intake of media that sexualizes or marginalizes women impacts how males view and treat women, so again segregation of media leaves a problem.



Well separate but equal didn't work because the equal part never happened, and thus the separate part merely enforced the unjust imbalance. If the equal part actually comes to fruition, wouldn't that change things?


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> Well separate but equal didn't work because the equal part never happened, and thus the separate part merely enforced the unjust imbalance. If the equal part actually comes to fruition, wouldn't that change things?



It's true the "equal" part never came to bear, but I agree with what the Supreme Court said, which is that separate can't be equal. In other words, even if blacks in the segregated south had access to the same quality of services as whites, but the two were forced to be separate, I think you still have a problem. So no, I don't think that it would solve the problem just to try to bring the "equal' part to fruition. I don't think it can be done, in any event.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> It's true the "equal" part never came to bear, but I agree with what the Supreme Court said, which is that separate can't be equal. In other words, even if blacks in the segregated south had access to the same quality of services as whites, but the two were forced to be separate, I think you still have a problem. So no, I don't think that it would solve the problem just to try to bring the "equal' part to fruition. I don't think it can be done, in any event.



Not with regard to race, because "race" isn't real. But the differences between boys and girls are quite real and also much easier to account for. You don't have to construct blue and pink ghettoes or anything. All that's needed to account for that difference is to do what the toy companies have done: have one division focus on boys while the other focuses on girls, and then continue that division up into adult media. 

Note, I'm not advocating for media segregation, it just seems so blindingly obvious as an idea that I figure there has to be SOME good reason why nobody's tried it yet. I can't be the first person who's thought of it. And as I said, it seems to work great for toy companies. So the question remains, why _hasn't_ anyone tried it (aside from Hasbro)?


----------



## Devor

Steerpike said:


> It's true the "equal" part never came to bear, but I agree with what the Supreme Court said, which is that separate can't be equal. In other words, even if blacks in the segregated south had access to the same quality of services as whites, but the two were forced to be separate, I think you still have a problem. So no, I don't think that it would solve the problem just to try to bring the "equal' part to fruition. I don't think it can be done, in any event.



Wow did that get off topic fast.

I think Mindfire's point is just that some products can be marketed to men, and others to women, and that can mostly be fine (edit:  he ninja'ed me with a post I'll respond to in a moment).  I think it becomes a more serious problem when it appears that an entire industry is marketed to one or the other, like graphic novels.

But there have been people who've given their daughters G.I. Joe or cars or superhero dolls, and the girls still talk to them and care for them like they would a barbie doll.  Arguing that you can't design a product for one or the other would be ignoring that there are a handful of basic differences between men and women.


----------



## Nihal

Why is it so hard to portray women as people?

There is no need at all to focus in creating separated, highly targeted media. To be fair, I usually hate, *hate* "women targeted" products. They usually end stripped of the "male values" (violence, etc), exaggerating the "women values" (romance, emotional, etc) instead. How a caricature is helpful? Wouldn't it be easier to get rid of all the bad writing and target your product using the tastes and interests of your audience as parameter?


----------



## saellys

Steerpike said:


> _Apropos_ of comments relating to why the issue matters, or whether it matters that certain media is marketed directly toward males and is therefore immune from criticism of gender bias:
> 
> http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...6/the-sexual-objectification-spillover-effect
> 
> It is but one reason as to why the issue is important, why something like the Bechdel Test _can_ be important (I'll point out that it was this inconsequential test that is directly responsible for spawning three threads and extensive commentary on the issue on this site alone), and why awareness of the issue is something that is of benefit to any Fantasy writer and to the genre as a whole.



This is an excellent resource and I foresee myself referencing it in many discussions to come. Thanks for sharing.



Devor said:


> The weird thing is, that research actually says nothing about whether the scantily clad image is a positive portrayal of the woman or a negative one.  It just says to the man, "Think about sex.  Great, now think about something else.  Gotcha!"  But that only says what we already know about the male brain.  The male brain tends to fixate on one thing at a time, and that's a basic component of male sexuality.  It isn't even fair to extrapolate that to the gender tropes we've been discussing, which may not even be sexualized.



So you want clarification on whether the portrayal of the scantily clad woman was positive or negative? What would that mean, exactly? Is there some shade of distinction between the swimsuit edition of _Sports Illustrated_ vs. a Victoria's Secret model vs. a vintage _Playboy_ spread? If they're all sexualized, and they all make men think about sex, and thinking about sex makes men view women more negatively, the distinction between positive and negative becomes a moot point.



Mindfire said:


> Well separate but equal didn't work because the equal part never happened, and thus the separate part merely enforced the unjust imbalance. If the equal part actually comes to fruition, wouldn't that change things?



Separate but equal didn't work because you can't treat people equally if they're separate. Or at least it's really really hard to do that on an institutional level, especially when "separate" would by necessity be implemented long before "equal". As Steerpike said, dividing media along gender lines will just make it easier to perpetuate stereotypes.


----------



## Devor

Mindfire said:


> Note, I'm not advocating for media segregation, it just seems so blindingly obvious as an idea that I figure there has to be SOME good reason why nobody's tried it yet. I can't be the first person who's thought of it. And as I said, it seems to work great for toy companies. So the question remains, why _hasn't_ anyone tried it (aside from Hasbro)?



The reason is simply that the differences between men and women shrink as we age and our brains develop more along with our experiences and less with our dispositions.  What happens a lot with women, in particular, is that they start to empathize with people who aren't women, which brings them into a lot of interests they may not normally be predisposed to, creating situations like the ones we've been discussing.

(edit)  That probably sounded wrong because I was only responding to Mindfire and then stopped.  But media segregation mostly doesn't work because women are inclined to break it.  By contrast, there's very few men reading romance novels, for instance.


----------



## Devor

saellys said:


> So you want clarification on whether the portrayal of the scantily clad woman was positive or negative? What would that mean, exactly? Is there some shade of distinction between the swimsuit edition of _Sports Illustrated_ vs. a Victoria's Secret model vs. a vintage _Playboy_ spread? If they're all sexualized, and they all make men think about sex, and thinking about sex makes men view women more negatively, the distinction between positive and negative becomes a moot point.



Well, you can't just characterize male sex drives as bad just because it works that way.


----------



## Nihal

Devor said:


> The reason is simply that the differences between men and women shrink as we age and our brains develop more along with our experiences and less with our dispositions.  What happens a lot with women, in particular, is that they start to empathize with people who aren't women, which brings them into a lot of interests they may not normally be predisposed to, creating situations like the ones we've been discussing.


I disagree in this one. The majority of what composes "womanly" behaviour is something learnt. You learn to fear and squeal when seeing bugs, you learn to be kind (c'mon, kids are evil!) in the same way you learn moral values, you learn to love and pursue the beauty, you learn that males "should" care for you. That's why women and men are more alike today than 50 years ago, for these stereotypes are start to being discouraged now.

The inverse is also true, with all the "men don't cry" story.


----------



## Steerpike

Yeah, a lot of the differences between males and females are societal results of gender bias and segregation, so it's hard to point to them and say "See, that's why we need gender bias and segregation!"


----------



## Mindfire

saellys said:


> So you want clarification on whether the portrayal of the scantily clad woman was positive or negative? What would that mean, exactly? Is there some shade of distinction between the swimsuit edition of _Sports Illustrated_ vs. a Victoria's Secret model vs. a vintage _Playboy_ spread? If they're all sexualized, and they all make men think about sex, and thinking about sex makes men view women more negatively, the distinction between positive and negative becomes a moot point.



Simply thinking about sex causes men to view women negatively, huh? Clearly the only solution is that men must never think about sex. Ever. 

What's that? You got married to the love of your life and you happen to think she's super hot? Well too bad. If you actually have sex with her, nay, even _contemplate_ having sex with her, it might make you think about her negatively. Celibacy is the only way to ensure your relationship remains one of mutual respect. And while you're at it, get her one of those chastity belts. And a burqa too. Just in case. Heck, why not eschew marraige altogether and go live in a monastery? Truly this is the only way we poor, degenerate man-animals can ever find true salvation from our hopelessly lustful ways.


----------



## Devor

Nihal said:


> I disagree in this one. The majority of what composes "womanly" behaviour is something learnt.



The majority of what we ascribe, sure.  But this article, for instance, summarizes many of the differences between the male and female brain.  There've been other studies, of course, showing that those differences happen on a continuum, not an absolute, so I don't mean to overstate.

However, I was talking about a specific trait that's been observed by marketers.  There are more women taking on "male interests" than the other way around.


----------



## Steerpike

Devor said:


> However, I was talking about a specific trait that's been observed by marketers.  There are more women taking on "male interests" than the other way around.



That's not surprising in patriarchy. However, a lot of arguments seem to boil down to "well, marketers have figured out what works," as though that settles the issue of whether something is good or bad, right or wrong. I don't think that's a good argument. Again, it's looking at the situation a few steps too late, where you already have bias at work and reflected in attitudes and then take that as justification to market in a biased way because, hey, that's how people are.


----------



## saellys

Devor said:


> Well, you can't just characterize male sex drives as bad just because it works that way.



I can see how you got that angle from my post, so I'll clarify, and then I think we should get back to women in fantasy. 

A sex drive, a physical reaction, cannot possibly be good or bad. It just is. It's totally natural to feel a physical reaction when presented with a sexualized image, whether or not the image is positive or negative. Sometime after that, when given the opportunity to rate a female tester, male study subjects gave her lower marks than the control group. 

I gather that you think the sexualized images were negative, and that's what caused negative marks, but I'm saying that when it comes to sexualization, objectification, submission, and the like, images I see in advertising all day long are basically on par with porn. 

I think what we need is more research into what happens between seeing an image and interacting with a woman in person. Otherwise the justification becomes "men can't function normally when they think about sex," and then we'll have to consider all men permanently disabled because they're constantly bombarded with sexualized images, and therefore constantly thinking about sex.


----------



## Devor

Steerpike said:


> That's not surprising in patriarchy. However, a lot of arguments seem to boil down to "well, marketers have figured out what works," as though that settles the issue of whether something is good or bad, right or wrong.



Please note the context of what I was saying.  I was explaining to Mindfire why media segregation doesn't work for adults.

By the way, a lot of the people here who have been talking about Marketing that way have never studied it.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> That's not surprising in patriarchy. However, a lot of arguments seem to boil down to "well, marketers have figured out what works," as though that settles the issue of whether something is good or bad, right or wrong. I don't think that's a good argument. Again, it's looking at the situation a few steps too late, where you already have bias at work and reflected in attitudes and then take that as justification to market in a biased way because, hey, that's how people are.



Here's a question. What's wrong with boys wanting action figures and guns and girls wanting dolls and etc.? My sister and I are pretty much a textbook example of the traditional boy/girl dichotomy. I gravitated to Batman and Transformers, she gravitated to Barbie. I chose to major in engineering, she chose to major in art (specifically, animation). I'm into martial arts, she wants nothing to do with it. Granted, sometimes our interests do match. We love pretty much the same cartoons, and we used to go at each other with water guns all the time. And she's less into super-girly stuff than she used to be. But our interests are still inclined more one way than the other. It's not like this never happens and the toy companies are just making stuff up. Is it wrong for these differences to occur? Is it wrong for parents to buy their kids gendered toys and other media? Should we all raise our kids like that one Canadian family where the parents make their son wear girls clothes and ban him from playing with absolutely anything that has a gun on it?

EDIT: I apologize for starting this tangent. Perhaps a new thread is in order?


----------



## saellys

It's not wrong for these differences to occur, or for gendered toys to occur, or for parents to buy gendered toys and media. When those are the only options and the whole thing becomes a self-perpetuating stereotype on both sides, there's a problem.


----------



## Ireth

Mindfire said:


> Is it wrong for parents to buy their kids gendered toys and other media? Should we all raise our kids like that one Canadian family where the parents make their son wear girls clothes and ban him from playing with absolutely anything that has a gun on it?



I don't think so, but certainly not all kids are this way. My little brother, who just turned two last month, loves playing with his 4-year-old sister's dolls and tea set as much as he loves his own toy cars and trucks. I don't see anything wrong with that. He likes what he likes.


----------



## Sheilawisz

I think that Morgana from the _Merlin_ TV series is a great example of a strong, deep and fascinating female character in a Fantasy world:

She is mysterious and complex, developing a lot as a character as the series advances. She is very feminine, but when it's necessary she knows how to fight with a sword and she can wear armor too =)

I am watching the second season, and Morgana is already my favourite character, by far!!


----------



## Mindfire

Sheilawisz said:


> I think that Morgana from the _Merlin_ TV series is a great example of a strong, deep and fascinating female character in a Fantasy world:
> 
> She is mysterious and complex, developing a lot as a character as the series advances. She is very feminine, but when it's necessary she knows how to fight with a sword and she can wear armor too =)
> 
> I am watching the second season, and Morgana is already my favourite character, by far!!



You do know who Morgana _is_, right?


----------



## Sheilawisz

I mean this Morgana Pendragon.

Morgana is starting to change in the second season, and because I have been reading the Merlin Wiki a lot these days, I already know what happens with Morgana later in the series.

I cannot wait to see how magically powerful she will be!!


----------



## Kit

Mindfire said:


> Here's a question. What's wrong with boys wanting action figures and guns and girls wanting dolls and etc.? My sister and I are pretty much a textbook example of the traditional boy/girl dichotomy. I gravitated to Batman and Transformers, she gravitated to Barbie. I chose to major in engineering, she chose to major in art (specifically, animation). I'm into martial arts, she wants nothing to do with it. Granted, sometimes our interests do match. We love pretty much the same cartoons, and we used to go at each other with water guns all the time. And she's less into super-girly stuff than she used to be. But our interests are still inclined more one way than the other. It's not like this never happens and the toy companies are just making stuff up. Is it wrong for these differences to occur? Is it wrong for parents to buy their kids gendered toys and other media? Should we all raise our kids like that one Canadian family where the parents make their son wear girls clothes and ban him from playing with absolutely anything that has a gun on it?
> 
> EDIT: I apologize for starting this tangent. Perhaps a new thread is in order?



Parents and other adults (consciously or subconsciously) encourage gender-stereotyped behavior in kids, from the moment they pop out and somebody puts a little Detroit Tigers onesie on the baby boy and a Little Mermaid onesie on the baby girl.

It is so ingrained, so early, that the kids themselves don't even realize that they've been brainwashed.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire, I'd like to request that you make one big post clarifying your arguments. I can't figure out how to make them not contradict each other without assuming at least one provably false premise (for instance, that all boys want to play with action figures and all girls want to play with dolls.)


----------



## Devor

saellys said:


> I gather that you think the sexualized images were negative, and that's what caused negative marks . . .



That's not really what I was saying.  Men have more trouble _shifting their brains_ from one topic to another.  It doesn't matter if the images were positive or negative.  Once a man is thinking about sex (or anything, for that matter), if you then put a female researcher in front of him, the inclination is that he will continue thinking about sex.  That's because the male brain tends to be more compartmentalized, focused on one thing at a time, and needs more time to shift gears.

By extension, I would expect that the men who were shown the sexualized images and rated their partner's intelligence negatively also had comparatively lower performances on the test.  Their focus hadn't shifted away from sex and towards the task at hand.




> . . . I'm saying that when it comes to sexualization, objectification, submission, and the like, images I see in advertising all day long are basically on par with porn.
> 
> I think what we need is more research into what happens between seeing an image and interacting with a woman in person. Otherwise the justification becomes "men can't function normally when they think about sex," and then we'll have to consider all men permanently disabled because they're constantly bombarded with sexualized images, and therefore constantly thinking about sex.



It's important to note that the trouble shifting gears works in both directions.  There's also some broad acclimation towards images like those we see every day.  The brains of most men, seeing most of the images around us, do not instantly shift gears towards sex.  But in a study like that they put you in a cubicle and tell you to focus just on the images on the screen, so that you're told to make that transition.


----------



## Feo Takahari

I have a hard time caring about all this stuff about "men's brains" and "women's brains", since I seem to have a lot of traits associated with "women's brains." (For instance, I tend to do well on mental aptitude tests that women usually do better on.) When people talk about how we should do _this_ because men think a certain way, and _that_ because women think a certain way, I'm left thinking, "Where does that leave me?"


----------



## Butterfly

Feo Takahari said:


> I have a hard time caring about all this stuff about "men's brains" and "women's brains", since I seem to have a lot of traits associated with "women's brains." (For instance, I tend to do well on mental aptitude tests that women usually do better on.) When people talk about how we should do _this_ because men think a certain way, and _that_ because women think a certain way, I'm left thinking, "Where does that leave me?"



It's one of the the 10 paradoxes of creative people — Paul Amanoae's journal. Nothing to worry about Feo.


----------



## Nihal

Feo Takahari said:


> I have a hard time caring about all this stuff about "men's brains" and "women's brains", since I seem to have a lot of traits associated with "women's brains." (For instance, I tend to do well on mental aptitude tests that women usually do better on.) When people talk about how we should do _this_ because men think a certain way, and _that_ because women think a certain way, I'm left thinking, "Where does that leave me?"



Exactly. Mentally, I could be considered almost as "a man". I have habits, tastes and strong traits that are "manly". Except for the fact that I'm much more than this. I would be a man in a cute dress. Then what?

There is one little factor, relevant to us, that the female who like to read this kind of story isn't the "average woman" (neither are the men who share this interest!). Therefore, for me, it's wiser to focus on writing better characters than trying to guess how woman would be conditioned think and react - due a number of speculated cultural and biological factors - to a story.


----------



## Steerpike

Nihal said:


> Therefore, for me, it's wiser to focus on writing better characters than trying to guess how woman would be conditioned think and react - due a number of speculated cultural and biological factors - to a story.



Ã© isso aÃ­!*

*You're right on target, Nihal.*

*


----------



## Chilari

Brain chemistry isn't a gender dichotomy. Hell, gender isn't a dichotomy. Gender is a gradient. Biological sex is a dichotomy (most of the time), but gender is not. You get feminine men and masculine women. You get transgendered people. You get people who seem to fit perfectly into their "gender" as children but end up being trans. When I was young I would play with lego and mechano and remote control cars, and climb trees, along with my two brothers. I never played with barbies (and in fact gave them to one of my little brother's male friends at a barbeque one time to get him to leave me alone). Now, one of my brothers is actually my sister and she is girly in a lot of ways but also a computer programmer who cycles the 22 miles to work fairly regularly. I also know a few people who prefer gender neutral pronouns and identify as neither male nor female.

So as far as gender media segregation goes, that's one reason it would not be workable: where do you draw the line(s)? How masculine and how feminine should you make stuff to fit the box? Because people don't fit the boxes, so the media sure won't. "Separate but equal" leaves people in the middle ground, or who cross the lines, out in the cold.


----------



## Nihal

Steerpike said:


> Ã© isso aÃ­!



Suddenly, Portuguese! You got me staring at the screen for a few seconds with the unexpected language change. Hah!


@Chilari
Yes!


----------



## Butterfly

Chilari said:


> Brain chemistry isn't a gender dichotomy. Hell, gender isn't a dichotomy. Gender is a gradient. Biological sex is a dichotomy (most of the time), but gender is not. You get feminine men and masculine women. You get transgendered people. You get people who seem to fit perfectly into their "gender" as children but end up being trans. When I was young I would play with lego and mechano and remote control cars, and climb trees, along with my two brothers. I never played with barbies (and in fact gave them to one of my little brother's male friends at a barbeque one time to get him to leave me alone). Now, one of my brothers is actually my sister and she is girly in a lot of ways but also a computer programmer who cycles the 22 miles to work fairly regularly. I also know a few people who prefer gender neutral pronouns and identify as neither male nor female.
> .




I used to climb trees with the boys too, and build dams in the gully and dens in the little woods. we even made a swing out of rope and launched a few sieges against the local bully boys.

And, if I remember rightly, I had a tendency to torture my Barbie dolls.


----------



## Steerpike

Chilari said:


> Hell, gender isn't a dichotomy. Gender is a gradient. Biological sex is a dichotomy (most of the time), but gender is not.



This is a point that gets overlooked often in discussions of gender. Understanding the distinction is one of the keys to understanding that people don't fit into discrete boxes according to their biological sex.


----------



## Zero Angel

Phil the Drill said:


> OK, we sort off got off track talking about Martin's work instead of talking about women in fantasy.  If it's not for you, then it's not for you.
> 
> I think Martin's women are flawed, interesting, and powerful in many different ways.  If you only read the first book and give up half-way through, then you're not going to see how the character arc works for them.



I read through the book where he only covered half of the characters. Is that enough to say that I find the characters and what happens to them disturbing?  Or do I need to somehow consume the rest of what I consider drivel to make an objective judgement call? Is it because I'm not a "true" fan that I don't get to have an opinion? I'm no true Scotsman. 



saellys said:


> This is an excellent resource and I foresee myself referencing it in many discussions to come. Thanks for sharing.
> 
> So you want clarification on whether the portrayal of the scantily clad woman was positive or negative? What would that mean, exactly? Is there some shade of distinction between the swimsuit edition of _Sports Illustrated_ vs. a Victoria's Secret model vs. a vintage _Playboy_ spread? If they're all sexualized, and they all make men think about sex, and thinking about sex makes men view women more negatively, the distinction between positive and negative becomes a moot point.
> 
> Separate but equal didn't work because you can't treat people equally if they're separate. Or at least it's really really hard to do that on an institutional level, especially when "separate" would by necessity be implemented long before "equal". As Steerpike said, dividing media along gender lines will just make it easier to perpetuate stereotypes.


I'm surprised to find myself agreeing more with you than ever  but I think the talk about these things being negative was more about that on average, guys don't multitask well, so they're in one mode and have a hard time transitioning to another. Sort of like how I teach my students to get into "math mode" before a test. 

This can be problematic though since it seems that guys are always exposed to the sexualized images (and seriously, even previously chaste things are now becoming fetishes). So if they're always in this mode of thinking of women in one way, then how are they ever supposed to take them seriously? 

I think one of the biggest issues is that guys are taught to be idiots and society perpetuates this. I don't find a problem with women being sexualized as big as the one where I find that it is OK to be morons. 



Feo Takahari said:


> I have a hard time caring about all this stuff about "men's brains" and "women's brains", since I seem to have a lot of traits associated with "women's brains." (For instance, I tend to do well on mental aptitude tests that women usually do better on.) When people talk about how we should do _this_ because men think a certain way, and _that_ because women think a certain way, I'm left thinking, "Where does that leave me?"



Don't read too far into statistics. Only 68% of people are within one standard deviation of "normal". There's plenty of room for all of us.


----------



## Devor

Yeah, I was just responding to the research that was posted, and also to the one question about media segregation.  Sorry, I guess that's the wonk in me.  I did Marketing/Economics in college, and I audited some of my wife's psychology classes, and I took other classes like that bring this stuff up, too, like those on leadership or conflict management.  And I sometimes read through HBR to keep fresh.




Kit said:


> Parents and other adults (consciously or subconsciously) encourage gender-stereotyped behavior in kids, from the moment they pop out and somebody puts a little Detroit Tigers onesie on the baby boy and a Little Mermaid onesie on the baby girl.



I think we hear this a lot, and there's some truth to it.  But child psychology has had no shortage of research.  Children show their personality within three days of being born, and that includes many of the gender differences I've been talking about.  There are differences between men and women, but those differences are much more _core and fundamental_ than the layers of nonsense society has added on top of them.

To bring it back to fantasy writing, insomuch as it can sometimes be useful to think about how men and women think differently, it helps me to think, loosely, "Women are more people-centered, and men are more abstract."  So if I catch myself writing a woman who's upset about losing the war (an abstraction), I go back and change it to being upset over how many people are dying.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Devor said:


> To bring it back to fantasy writing, insomuch as it can sometimes be useful to think about how men and women think differently, it helps me to think, loosely, "Women are more people-centered, and men are more abstract."  So if I catch myself writing a woman who's upset about losing the war (an abstraction), I go back and change it to being upset over how many people are dying.



This right here is _exactly_ the problem I personally am getting at. Plenty of women would be upset at the "abstraction" of losing the war, and plenty of men would be upset at how many people died. If you're only writing women who get upset at people dying, and only writing men who get upset at losing the war, you're portraying less variety than exists in real life, and I consider that a failure of imagination.


----------



## Devor

Feo Takahari said:


> This right here is _exactly_ the problem I personally am getting at. Plenty of women would be upset at the "abstraction" of losing the war, and plenty of men would be upset at how many people died. If you're only writing women who get upset at people dying, and only writing men who get upset at losing the war, you're portraying less variety than exists in real life, and I consider that a failure of imagination.



That's true enough, but at the same time, if I have a woman arguing about a war, it's also a good sign that too much of me is coming across, and not enough of the character.  It goes towards creating your characters and their differences deliberately, rather than having your predispositions superimposed upon them by accident.  Besides, I think we see enough women-who-think-and-talk-like-guys without me needing to do another one.


----------



## Steerpike

Feo Takahari said:


> This right here is _exactly_ the problem I personally am getting at. Plenty of women would be upset at the "abstraction" of losing the war, and plenty of men would be upset at how many people died.



Yes. This gets to my point about writing the character as a person and asking what would this "person" do, or what would this "character" do, and not whether it is what a man or woman would do. Any given man or woman might be upset at the loss of life, and any other given man or women might be upset as losing a war in the abstract. Without focusing on the idea of "what would this person do" you're just going to get a uniform distribution of traits between men and women  - all women react the same; all men react the same. To me, that detracts from realism and from depth of character.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Steerpike said:


> This is a point that gets overlooked often in discussions of gender. Understanding the distinction is one of the keys to understanding that people don't fit into discrete boxes according to their biological sex.



This holds true for any character attribute. I don't think there's anything wrong with playing to gender expectations as long as we're also willing to go against what is expected as well. Where too much surprise may ring false, the same would hold true with too little variety. At that point, it's only about writing good, complete, and interesting characters. If your characters share too many similarities based on gender, race, culture, whatever...then your work probably won't be as interesting as it could be with distinct individuals playing those parts.

It's the attributes that fall outside expectations that often draw the strongest reader reaction.


----------



## Mindfire

Sheilawisz said:


> I mean this Morgana Pendragon.
> 
> Morgana is starting to change in the second season, and because I have been reading the Merlin Wiki a lot these days, I already know what happens with Morgana later in the series.
> 
> I cannot wait to see how magically powerful she will be!!



Just making sure you knew she becomes evil later. (As in, irredeemably so.)


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> Mindfire, I'd like to request that you make one big post clarifying your arguments. I can't figure out how to make them not contradict each other without assuming at least one provably false premise (for instance, that all boys want to play with action figures and all girls want to play with dolls.)



They probably contradict because up to now I haven't really been _making_ a unified argument, just asking questions, exploring ideas, along with some devil's advocate and simple contrariness. 

But to clarify, what contradictions in particular?


----------



## Nightender

In the story I'm working on right now, my lead character is a minor priestess of a death religion.  She spends a lot of time talking with her closest friend, another priestess, and they usually chat about all sorts of things, usually all the throats they have to slash.

I take a lot of effort to make sure they are strong characters, but I don't force them to be warriors or military leaders because they aren't trained for that sort of thing.  Instead, I give them strength of conviction and ideals, morals and personal preferences.

A lot of fantasy likes to take women and make them fighters or write a male role and add female anatomy.  To do it right, I think writers have to observe female behavior and sensibilities, then grow characters from there.

That's my basic thought.  Just tossing it in to join with the conversation.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> They probably contradict because up to know I haven't really been _making_ a unified argument, just asking questions, exploring ideas, along with some devil's advocate and simple contrariness.
> 
> But to clarify, what contradictions in particular?



Well, it all depends on how various things you've said are interpreted. For instance, if your argument for more minority writers is read as also advocating more female writers in traditionally male-dominated spaces, that goes against the statement that it's okay if male and female genres are separate.



Devor said:


> That's true enough, but at the same time, if I have a woman arguing about a war, it's also a good sign that too much of me is coming across, and not enough of the character.  It goes towards creating your characters and their differences deliberately, rather than having your predispositions superimposed upon them by accident.  Besides, I think we see enough women-who-think-and-talk-like-guys without me needing to do another one.



It depends on how you've previously set up the character. A field medic who treats the wounded of both sides may not care about the loss of the war, whereas a rank-and-file soldier may be enraged that the loss of the war rendered her comrades' deaths meaningless.


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> This right here is _exactly_ the problem I personally am getting at. Plenty of women would be upset at the "abstraction" of losing the war, and plenty of men would be upset at how many people died. If you're only writing women who get upset at people dying, and only writing men who get upset at losing the war, you're portraying less variety than exists in real life, and I consider that a failure of imagination.



It's impossible to portray all the variety that exists in real life. At least not accurately. It's not a failure of imagination so much as it is pragmatic. One way of looking at it is that these characteristics are shorthands for what men and women are like, and are therefore useful because they allow us to acquaint a reader with a character quickly without needing to add too much extraneous detail. It is useful for a writer for a man to _just be_ a man and a woman to _just be_ a woman, if for no other reason than it saves time and effort. And what's more, this is fantasy after all. Maybe the people of this alternate world are more rigidly gendered by nature than people in ours. A writer is not obliged to address every variation of humanity simply because they exist.


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> It is useful for a writer for a man to _just be_ a man and a woman to _just be_ a woman, if for no other reason than it saves time and effort.



That's a cop out, in my view. There's no reason you can't take that approach in any given instance, since that would also be consistent with reality. But if female characters are that way consistently, and there is no variation away from it, it's just lazy character development and the reader is right to throw the book at the wall and find something else.


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> Well, it all depends on how various things you've said are interpreted. For instance, if your argument for more minority writers is read as also advocating more female writers in traditionally male-dominated spaces, that goes against the statement that it's okay if male and female genres are separate.



Well, for one thing, I specifically said I was _not_ arguing for separate male and female genres, only wondering why nobody had tried it. 

And secondly, even if I had been arguing that, that does not necessarily imply a contradiction between those two statements for the simple reason that I only said it would be a good thing if a greater variety of writers were writing. I never specified _what_ they should write. There could be more female media creators creating media specifically for females and it would still qualify as "greater variety".


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> That's a cop out, in my view. There's no reason you can't take that approach in any given instance, since that would also be consistent with reality. But if female characters are that way consistently, and there is no variation away from it, it's just lazy character development and the reader is right to throw the book at the wall and find something else.



So because all female characters would share a single trait that would somehow be lazy character development? I don't follow you. What I'm getting at is that there's no reason for an author to flesh out the internal lives of _every single character_ that appears, especially if their roles are small and their personal identity and inner lives are not plot relevant. Not everyone is GRR Martin. Not everyone wants to or needs to flesh out every minor character that crops up. And what's more, if the writer does wish to make a given character stand out, then they are still at liberty to do so. It's not a mutually exclusive affair.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> It's impossible to portray all the variety that exists in real life. At least not accurately. It's not a failure of imagination so much as it is pragmatic. One way of looking at it is that these characteristics are shorthands for what men and women are like, and are therefore useful because they allow us to acquaint a reader with a character quickly without needing to add too much extraneous detail. It is useful for a writer for a man to _just be_ a man and a woman to _just be_ a woman, if for no other reason than it saves time and effort. And what's more, this is fantasy after all. Maybe the people of this alternate world are more rigidly gendered by nature than people in ours. A writer is not obliged to address every variation of humanity simply because they exist.



Have you ever read any of Isaac Asimov's short stories? He had a strong tendency towards quick-and-easy characterization, the better to get to the plot. His male characters were often traditionally male, and his female characters were often traditionally female. But he didn't do that all the time--that would have been boring. (For instance, Susan Calvin, his most frequently recurring female character, was a ruthless and pragmatic defender of humanity/oppressor of robots who only rarely showed emotion.)


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> So because all female characters would share a single trait that would somehow be lazy character development? I don't follow you.



Yeah, if every single female is the same in way X, or ways X, Y, and Z, in terms of how they act or perceive things, I think that's lazy and unrealistic character development, unless you've got a very good explanation for it (and even then, the outlier is going to be more interesting person to follow).



> What I'm getting at is that there's no reason for an author to flesh out the internal lives of _every single character_ that appears, especially if their roles are small and their personal identity and inner lives are not plot relevant.



No one is suggesting they should. People are just suggesting that the same limited characterizations of females shouldn't be consistently and predominantly appearing over and over again across the breadth of the genre.


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> Have you ever read any of Isaac Asimov's short stories? He had a strong tendency towards quick-and-easy characterization, the better to get to the plot. His male characters were often traditionally male, and his female characters were often traditionally female. But he didn't do that all the time--that would have been boring. (For instance, Susan Calvin, his most frequently recurring female character, was a ruthless and pragmatic defender of humanity/oppressor of robots who only rarely showed emotion.)



Not saying a writer has to do it all the time. (Really a writer doesn't _have_ to do much of anything.) I'm only saying that it's unrealistic to expect an author to fully capture the immense variety of humanity in a single work. It'd be extremely ambitious to even try.


----------



## Feo Takahari

I think some of this issue of masculine and feminine traits depend on where you are. I grew up in a town where all the boys and girls respectively acted the way boys and girls were supposed to. We never saw any sort of punishment for people who acted weird, because nobody acted weird in the first place (save me, and I was considered amusingly eccentric rather than disliked.) Then I moved to a more liberal town, and I'm meeting all sorts of people who're outside the gender binary.


----------



## Devor

Feo Takahari said:


> It depends on how you've previously set up the character. A field medic who treats the wounded of both sides may not care about the loss of the war, whereas a rank-and-file soldier may be enraged that the loss of the war rendered her comrades' deaths meaningless.



I really didn't mean it as an absolute, and it was also a pretty simple example to illustrate.  But there've been a lot of men on the forums in the past who have said they have no idea how to write women.  Rules are for people getting started; the people/abstraction distinction is a rule for learning how to get inside someone else's head, to be put aside once you grow beyond it.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> No one is suggesting they should. People are just suggesting that the same limited characterizations of females shouldn't be consistently and predominantly appearing over and over again across the breadth of the genre.



Are we talking about the work of a single author and their decisions? Or are we talking about the genre as a whole? Because if the latter, than I would repeat my earlier statement: find more, and more variable, writers. If we are talking about the former, I would say that starting off with a "female template", or recognizing a distinction between male and female, or making gender integral to a character, does not preclude variety in female characters. Personal example: my female hunter-warrior and bodyguard, Meeka, is quite different from my sage and prophetess, Sarabi, who is in turn extremely different from my female cult leader, Sitara, who is worlds away from the protagonist's cousin, Kianna. Each of those characters is quite distinct from the others in my mind and each has their own persona and goals. But at the same time, if I was to make one of them a man instead of a woman, I would have a completely different character.


----------



## Nightender

In such a template, you can always mark things like the features that a character notices first.  Studies have shown that women tend to observe faces more than bodies like men.  Speaking to the values of a character always improves how well they come across.


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire, I think you are purposefully disregarding things that have been repeated multiple times across this and other threads already. There is only so many times that it makes sense to re-state something. If you are content to see stereotypical, gender-biased depictions of females as the vastly predominant depiction in fantasy media, then we'll just agree to disagree. 

As for the more and more diverse writers, certainly that will help, but casting the whole thing aside as "someone else's problem," and therefore we shouldn't consider it is a mistake, in my view.


----------



## Devor

Steerpike said:


> If you are content to see stereotypical, gender-biased depictions of females as the vastly predominant depiction in fantasy media, then we'll just agree to disagree.



I think you're significantly overstating how limited and stereotypical the one distinction I mentioned is, and significantly understating how difficult it is to understand how someone else perceives the world.  The most basic template for understanding that men and women think differently can be invaluable for some authors.

After all, were we not just saying that many of GRRM's characters were strong _because of their feminine qualities?_  Isn't identifying what those qualities are going to be important if we're then going to make judgments based upon them?


----------



## Steerpike

Devor said:


> I think you're significantly overstating how limited and stereotypical the one distinction I mentioned is, and significantly understating how difficult it is to understand how someone else perceives the world.  The most basic template for understanding that men and women think differently can be invaluable for some authors.
> 
> After all, were we not just saying that many of GRRM's characters were strong _because of their feminine qualities?_  Isn't identifying what those qualities are going to be important if we're then going to make judgments based upon them?



Again, I'm talking about uniformity of depictions. I don't know how to make that much more clear than by stating it outright, as I've already done in this thread.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Some female characters can act how women are expected to act.

Not all female characters should act how women are expected to act.

Everyone agrees with both these statements, right?


----------



## Nihal

Devor said:


> After all, were we not just saying that many of GRRM's characters were strong _because of their feminine qualities?_  Isn't identifying what those qualities are going to be important if we're then going to make judgments based upon them?



I wouldn't call them "feminine qualities". I would say they're strong because they manage to impact story without stepping (too much) outside their predetermined gender _role_ - which was, traditionally, shut up and do whatever the men where ordering, be delicate, docile, etc etc etc.


----------



## Steerpike

Feo Takahari said:


> Some female characters can act how women are expected to act.
> 
> Not all female characters should act how women are expected to act.
> 
> Everyone agrees with both these statements, right?



I expect so


----------



## Devor

Steerpike said:


> Again, I'm talking about uniformity of depictions. I don't know how to make that much more clear than by stating it outright, as I've already done in this thread.



And Mindfire stated:

_If we are talking about the former, I would say that starting off with a "female template", or recognizing a distinction between male and female, or making gender integral to a character, does not preclude variety in female characters._

Why would you go and portray that as saying:

_If you are content to see stereotypical, gender-biased depictions of females as the vastly predominant depiction in fantasy media, then we'll just agree to disagree._

That doesn't follow, in my view.  Some authors need a template - it's not much different from an archetype.  In fact, Phil the Drill posted eight such templates earlier, from a book full of them, so we're clearly not the only ones.

If men and their depictions are the problem, it's not going to solve a problem to ignore their needs.  If some men need a template to start with, you'd find a better solution by saying, "Here's a well-rounded, not-stereotypical way of putting it."  Which, for instance, I've tried to do.


----------



## Feo Takahari

But why use the templates at all? I can write female characters who my female readers find believable without doing anything different from what I do with male characters. (To repeat, I have female readers, and they find these characters believable.)


----------



## Nightender

I think that marks a level of success for you, Feo.  If you can make female characters that female readers can relate to and cheer for, then you've done it right.


----------



## Steerpike

Feo Takahari said:


> But why use the templates at all? I can write female characters who my female readers find believable* without doing anything different from what I do with male characters.* (To repeat, I have female readers, and they find these characters believable.)



I'm out of "likes," so let me just say YES. This is the approach that makes the most sense, in my view.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> Mindfire, I think you are purposefully disregarding things that have been repeated multiple times across this and other threads already. There is only so many times that it makes sense to re-state something. If you are content to see stereotypical, gender-biased depictions of females as the vastly predominant depiction in fantasy media, then we'll just agree to disagree.
> 
> As for the more and more diverse writers, certainly that will help, but casting the whole thing aside as "someone else's problem," and therefore we shouldn't consider it is a mistake, in my view.



I think this is a mischaracterization of my statement. I said that with regard to the genre as a whole, the best, or at least most practical, solution is to get more diverse writers. And you yourself seem to at least partially agree with that statement. And I don't think saying that is dismissing the issue. Each one of us individually has infinitesimal influence on the genre as a whole. So if we're discussing the genre as a whole, individual decisions fall out of consideration because they have next to no weight. The only sensible way to approach a general problem is with a general solution. Now if we're talking about specific problems, i.e. case by case, then the best each individual can do is to offer their work up for consideration and open themselves to suggestions- which I have done and continue to do. So far, I have noted no particular disapproval of my work as it relates to this issue, so I can only assume I've done at least passably well. If you think otherwise, I sincerely welcome your input.


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> Some female characters can act how women are expected to act.
> 
> Not all female characters should act how women are expected to act.
> 
> Everyone agrees with both these statements, right?



I would amend that as follows:



> Female characters can act as women are expected to act.
> 
> Not all female characters need to act as women are expected to act.



There's a subtle difference. Your version implicitly requires the author to include at least one female character who defies gender expectations. My version includes no such requirement, only the freedom to do so at the author's discretion.


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> But why use the templates at all? I can write female characters who my female readers find believable without doing anything different from what I do with male characters. (To repeat, I have female readers, and they find these characters believable.)



Not everyone writes the same. Some people need or just want templates. Others don't. I tend to be systematic and methodical (almost mechanically so) when constructing my world and characters. Templates, tables, and forms are useful for me. You may be able to approach male and female characters identically, but I cannot. To do so would be to reduce the difference between male and female to nothing more than a cosmetic distinction, something that does not jive with my personal beliefs and observations. It's also just plain difficult.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> You version implicitly requires the author to include at least one female character who defies gender expectations. My version includes no such requirement, only the freedom to do so at the author's discretion.



In a short story, sure. But if you're writing a full-length novel, and it doesn't take place in some largely male setting (say, a gender-segregated military), it's kind of odd if all your female characters act the same.


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> So if we're discussing the genre as a whole, individual decisions fall out of consideration because they have next to no weight.



I don't agree with this, either, because the whole of the genre is just made up of a collection of individuals, so individual decisions matter. It's kind of like another version of the think globally, act locally slogan. If you convince everyone you can only make a difference at a macro level, all you end up doing is excusing non-action at a micro level, when really action at the micro-level is a prerequisite to seeing a change at the macro level.


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> In a short story, sure. But if you're writing a full-length novel, and it doesn't take place in some largely male setting (say, a gender-segregated military), it's kind of odd if all your female characters act the same.



If they are all feminine that does not necessarily imply that the act the same. As I've said earlier, my female characters are quite variable.


----------



## Devor

Mindfire said:


> Not everyone writes the same.



Yeah, no learning curve allowed.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> I don't agree with this, either, because the whole of the genre is just made up of a collection of individuals, so individual decisions matter. It's kind of like another version of the think globally, act locally slogan. If you convince everyone you can only make a difference at a macro level, all you end up doing is excusing non-action at a micro level, when really action at the micro-level is a prerequisite to seeing a change at the macro level.



But that's not what I proposed. Rather, I suggested a two-pronged method: at the macro level, encourage authors with a variety of backgrounds. At the micro level, examine your own work and seek constrictive criticism.


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> But that's not what I proposed. Rather, I suggested a two-pronged method: at the macro level, encourage authors with a variety of backgrounds. At the micro level, examine your own work and seek constrictive criticism.



I think that works fine if you're open to constructive criticism.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> I think that works fine if you're open to constructive criticism.



Well, I keep throwing things at you and asking "what do you think of this" and the general reaction is, "Eh. Okay." Since no one has rounded up the lynch mob yet I can only assume I'm doing alright. If not, give me a clue or something.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> Well, I keep throwing things at you and asking "what do you think of this" and the general reaction is, "Eh. Okay." Since no one has rounded up the lynch mob yet I can only assume I'm doing alright. If not, give me a clue or something.



Keep in mind that most of us haven't actually read your work. It's a bit hard to tell anything just from general descriptions. (I think how characters' perspectives are portrayed, and whether those characters have internal lives at all, is a micro problem, but which character types keep showing up over and over is more of a macro problem.)


----------



## saellys

Devor said:


> To bring it back to fantasy writing, insomuch as it can sometimes be useful to think about how men and women think differently, it helps me to think, loosely, "Women are more people-centered, and men are more abstract."  So if I catch myself writing a woman who's upset about losing the war (an abstraction), I go back and change it to being upset over how many people are dying.





Devor said:


> That's true enough, but at the same time, if I have a woman arguing about a war, it's also a good sign that too much of me is coming across, and not enough of the character.  It goes towards creating your characters and their differences deliberately, rather than having your predispositions superimposed upon them by accident.  Besides, I think we see enough women-who-think-and-talk-like-guys without me needing to do another one.





Devor said:


> I really didn't mean it as an absolute, and it was also a pretty simple example to illustrate.  But there've been a lot of men on the forums in the past who have said they have no idea how to write women.  Rules are for people getting started; the people/abstraction distinction is a rule for learning how to get inside someone else's head, to be put aside once you grow beyond it.



There are at least three female characters in _The Stone Front_ who would be more upset about losing the war than about losses on either side. Proposing rules like that for people who say they don't know how to write women is counterproductive. As Chilari said so eloquently, the gender dichotomy is a myth, and as Steerpike has been saying for three threads now, it's better to write characters who act naturally than characters who are unmistakably male or female. When you use an example where you're writing things a certain way as your first instinct, but then you go back and change the character's motivation to make her fit an arbitrary standard of femininity... well, I wouldn't say it's lazy per se, and I probably wouldn't throw your book at the wall, but it feels like a disservice to a character who could have represented more.


----------



## Feo Takahari

saellys said:


> There are at least three female characters in _The Stone Front_ who would be more upset about losing the war than about losses on either side. Proposing rules like that for people who say they don't know how to write women is counterproductive. As Chilari said so eloquently, the gender dichotomy is a myth, and as Steerpike has been saying for three threads now, it's better to write characters who act naturally than characters who are unmistakably male or female. When you use an example where you're writing things a certain way as your first instinct, but then you go back and change the character's motivation to make her fit an arbitrary standard of femininity... well, I wouldn't say it's lazy per se, and I probably wouldn't throw your book at the wall, but it feels like a disservice to a character who could have represented more.



Do be careful what you're arguing here, since you've previously argued _against_ maintaining a character's initial motivation (under circumstances where that motivation is stereotypical.) I'm for more variety in character types, but I don't think a character's initial personality is necessarily better OR worse than her personality in rewrites.


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> Keep in mind that most of us haven't actually read your work. It's a bit hard to tell anything just from general descriptions. (I think how characters' perspectives are portrayed, and whether those characters have internal lives at all, is a micro problem, but which character types keep showing up over and over is more of a macro problem.)



What information would be useful to you?


----------



## Zero Angel

Phew guys. I don't want Devor locking the thread again. Maybe we should bring this back to, yet again, females in fantasy. Instead of talking how they SHOULD be, let's talk about how we want them to be?

Worth a shot anyway.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> What information would be useful to you?



On another site I used to hang out on, an author posted the first meeting between the male lead and the female lead. This scene was supposed to be from the female lead's perspective. It was largely about how sexy the female lead was, coupled with a rather vague implication that the female lead wanted to have sex with the male lead (though without much indication of _what_ the female lead found attractive about the male lead.) This was roundly criticized, because even in what was supposed to be her perspective scene, the female lead was written more in terms of her hotness and sexual availability than in terms of her own desires.

I think what we'd need in order to evaluate your female characters is some sort of excerpt. Or possibly the entire story. Just a description of the characters doesn't show how well they're written.

P.S. I just realized--what if the story's entirely from the perspective of a male character who has a very sexual view of women? I think it's okay if he approaches them sex-first, although there should be at least some hint that he's not a reliable narrator in this regard. (I haven't read it, but I've heard that _Scott Pilgrim_ starts off with Scott viewing Ramona as his semi-literal dream girl, before showing how self-centered he is.)


----------



## Ireth

Zero Angel said:


> Phew guys. I don't want Devor locking the thread again. Maybe we should bring this back to, yet again, females in fantasy. Instead of talking how they SHOULD be, let's talk about how we want them to be?
> 
> Worth a shot anyway.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the people in this thread _want_ women to be portrayed how they _should_ be portrayed? That would make the two issue one and the same, no?


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> On another site I used to hang out on, an author posted the first meeting between the male lead and the female lead. This scene was supposed to be from the female lead's perspective. It was largely about how sexy the female lead was, coupled with a rather vague implication that the female lead wanted to have sex with the male lead (though without much indication of _what_ the female lead found attractive about the male lead.)



Um, my male lead and initial female lead are cousins. Ick.



Feo Takahari said:


> This was roundly criticized, because even in what was supposed to be her perspective scene, the female lead was written more in terms of her hotness and sexual availability than in terms of her own desires.
> 
> I think what we'd need in order to evaluate your female characters is some sort of excerpt. Or possibly the entire story. Just a description of the characters doesn't show how well they're written.



I can post an excerpt of their first meeting if you like. (Within the story. They're cousins, so they've obviously met before.) It's from the male character's POV, but it should give a clue as to how I intend to portray their relationship if I've written it right. Alternatively I could post an excerpt of her first appearance. She actually first appears before the two of them meet IIRC. Or I can give you both. Whichever suits you.


----------



## Mindfire

Ireth said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the people in this thread _want_ women to be portrayed how they _should_ be portrayed? That would make the two issue one and the same, no?



I think he's implying a difference between expressing a personal preference and espousing a universal standard and encouraging the participants of this thread to do the former without attempting the latter.


----------



## saellys

Feo Takahari said:


> Do be careful what you're arguing here, since you've previously argued _against_ maintaining a character's initial motivation (under circumstances where that motivation is stereotypical.) I'm for more variety in character types, but I don't think a character's initial personality is necessarily better OR worse than her personality in rewrites.



There are some pretty major differences between those statements and this one, and I hope everyone here will have the nuance to appreciate that.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> I can post an excerpt of their first meeting if you like. (Within the story. They're cousins, so they've obviously met before.) It's from the male character's POV, but it should give a clue as to how I intend to portray their relationship if I've written it right. Alternatively I could post an excerpt of her first appearance. She actually first appears before the two of them meet IIRC. Or I can give you both. Whichever suits you.



I'm not really interested in criticizing any specific poster's portrayal of female characters--if we're going to talk about what's already done in fantasy, let's talk in terms of people who'll never show up here and complain about what we've said about them.


----------



## Steerpike

John Norman probably won't show up...


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> I'm not really interested in criticizing any specific poster's portrayal of female characters--if we're going to talk about what's already done in fantasy, let's talk in terms of people who'll never show up here and complain about what we've said about them.



But then, what does that achieve? Doesn't it to more good to offer your opinion to someone who will at least give it consideration than to discuss the work of someone who will likely never even see your response to it?



Steerpike said:


> John Norman probably won't show up...



Who?

*EDIT:* *One Google search later* Oh. The Gor novels. Never read them. What about them?


----------



## Feo Takahari

All that needs to be said about Gor.


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> All that needs to be said about Gor.



...wtf?
....


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> ...
> 
> ...
> 
> ...wtf?



Not a real excerpt, I think. Gor is basically themed toward submissive, subservient females subject to dominant males.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Steerpike said:


> Not a real excerpt, I think. Gor is basically themed toward submissive, subservient females subject to dominant males.



But it's okay, because "the sheep of Gor graze the plains of Gor to produce the wool of Gor." In other words, it's not our world, and society's too different to be comparable. As we're told over and over.


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> But it's okay, because "the sheep of Gor graze the plains of Gor to produce the wool of Gor." In other words, it's not our world, and society's too different to be comparable. As we're told over and over.



Um...lol? I think?


----------



## Steerpike

Feo Takahari said:


> But it's okay, because "the sheep of Gor graze the plains of Gor to produce the wool of Gor." In other words, it's not our world, and society's too different to be comparable. As we're told over and over.



Except from the statements I've seen of Norman, he thinks that's how our world should be because that is the natural order.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> Except from the statements I've seen of Norman, he thinks that's how our world should be because that is the natural order.



That sheep should graze our fields and produce our wool? I'm down with that. So what's the problem?

Oh, wait... he thinks about women the same way doesn't he? 

Yeah, I can't even devil's advocate this guy.


----------



## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> That sheep should graze our fields and produce our wool? I'm down with that. So what's the problem?
> 
> Oh, wait... he thinks about women the same way doesn't he?
> 
> Yeah, I can't even devil's advocate this guy.




From Wikipedia:



> His fiction places emphasis on living in accordance with a Nietzsche-esque natural order, sponsoring a hierarchy of talent, especially strength. Based on this assumed hierarchy, to analyze gender differences, he contends that woman is thesubmissive natural helper, and figurative slave, of dominant man. His work often takes this observation literally: heroes enslave heroines who, upon being enslaved, revel in the discovery of their natural place. Bondage in the novels and in his_Imaginative Sex guide is overtly and completely sexual in nature and while the philosophy presented is unquestionably that of male dominance, the male characters are themselves often temporarily and elaborately enslaved by powerful females. In an interview[SUP][1][/SUP] with Polygraff magazine, Norman stated that he believes that it is obvious that all societies are based on dominance and hierarchy._


----------



## Jabrosky

I consider myself pro-feminist and anti-sexist insofar as I support women having the same rights, freedoms, and responsibilities as men, but as a fantasy artist and writer myself, I _like _depicting sexy women. I am a young heterosexual male after all. For certain ideologues to accuse me of some kind of horrible misogyny simply because I like to celebrate the beauty of the idealized female form is a personal insult. They are basically telling me I can't draw whatever I want. Now I can accept that sexualizing my heroines might bias my work towards a heterosexual male fanbase, but then I am not obligated to please every single demographic group out there. I create for my own enjoyment, not to cater to the politically correct.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Jabrosky said:


> I consider myself pro-feminist and anti-sexist insofar as I support women having the same rights, freedoms, and responsibilities as men, but as a fantasy artist and writer myself, I _like _depicting sexy women. I am a young heterosexual male after all. For certain ideologues to accuse me of some kind of horrible misogyny simply because I like to celebrate the beauty of the idealized female form is a personal insult. They are basically telling me I can't draw whatever I want. Now I can accept that sexualizing my heroines might bias my work towards a heterosexual male fanbase, but then I am not obligated to please every single demographic group out there. I create for my own enjoyment, not to cater to the politically correct.



You keep talking about these "ideologues". Who on Earth are these people, and what exactly do they say to you? (I've never encountered them--not just on my stories, but anywhere, barring stories that are actually sexist.)

Edit: I still haven't read your stories, but I've noticed there's a certain way you tend to talk about your female protagonists--like they're not so much characters as dolls for you to pose. If that carries over to your stories, and people are pointing that out, that's not a criticism of sexualization, that's a criticism of lack of personality. (Again, I haven't read your stories yet, so I might be completely off base here.)

Edit to the edit: Mindfire, this is actually what I was thinking of when I said I didn't want to get into an argument about the stories of anyone on this board. I'm aware I'm treading on ground that could potentially descend into a flamewar and get this thread locked--that's why I keep editing this post to make it more polite and less confrontational.


----------



## Philip Overby

I'm going to suggest we stay out of the realm of criticizing people's approaches to their own characters.  It's a delicate ground to tread on.  

That said, I would say that making characters as three-dimensional as possible will avoid any sort of thoughts readers might have about the flatness of their presentation.  For instance, if I'm writing a strong, Amazon-type character, I don't want readers (for me personally) only to see her surface level presentation.  If she's physically strong, I'd want her to also have some kind of perceived flaw or need for something more.  Perhaps she longs for better companionship as the rest of the people she's surrounded by are also physically strong and that's all they care about.  Making your characters stand out amongst the crowd will make for an overall more compelling story.  

If characters are only presented in one certain way, the reader may not connect with them if there isn't more going on.

I think the key to having women more well-represented in fiction is to give them multiple facets that readers can latch on to.  If they are just kind or pretty or bashful or whatever, that's only so much a reader can get from them.


----------



## Steerpike

Phil the Drill said:


> That said, I would say that making characters as three-dimensional as possible will avoid any sort of thoughts readers might have about the flatness of their presentation.



Yes, I think this is right. To me, if you approach all of your important characters (not necessary for unimportant ones) as people first, with personality traits you've defined to create the character, and then proceed by treating them as autonomous individuals with certain personality traits that you've given them, then you never really have to ask yourself whether X or Y is OK because the character is male or female. All that will matter is whether the act is in character (or whether there is a good reason for it not to be), and you'll know the answer to that without ever thinking about the sex of the character.


----------



## Zero Angel

Mindfire said:


> But then, what does that achieve? Doesn't it to more good to offer your opinion to someone who will at least give it consideration than to discuss the work of someone who will likely never even see your response to it?



Well, we could do case studies? Otherwise, does anyone else feel we are just running around in circles?


----------



## Mindfire

Zero Angel said:


> Well, we could do case studies? Otherwise, does anyone else feel we are just running around in circles?



Seems like it... I mean, in each thread everyone basically says exactly what they said in the previous thread, except ith more civility. But that's progress I suppose.  

I don't think case studies would be a _bad_ idea.


----------



## Jabrosky

Feo Takahari said:


> I still haven't read your stories, but I've noticed there's a certain way you tend to talk about your female protagonists--like they're not so much characters as dolls for you to pose. If that carries over to your stories, and people are pointing that out, that's not a criticism of sexualization, that's a criticism of lack of personality. (Again, I haven't read your stories yet, so I might be completely off base here.)


And where exactly do I do this?


----------



## Nebuchadnezzar

For what it's worth, the first five Gor novels are good books -- real top-notch sword & planet stuff in the Burroughs' vein with a little tame 1960s sexual mores thrown in.  At book six I can only assume Norman went through a nasty divorce IRL because things rapidly go downhill from there in terms of his views & portrayal of women.


----------



## Mindfire

Jabrosky said:


> And where exactly do I do this?



I don't mean to offend you. _However,_ pretty much every other mention you make of your female characters is about how unbelievably exotic and hot they are and how you modeled them after your personal... tastes.  Remember that one thread? Yeah... You might want to turn it down a notch. I'm sorry, but it had to be said.


----------



## Philip Overby

I'm interested in what is meant by "case studies."  Does anyone have any suggestions as far as that goes?


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> I don't mean to offend you. _However,_ pretty much every other mention you make of your female characters is about how unbelievably exotic and hot they are and how you modeled them after your personal... tastes.  Remember that one thread? Yeah... You might want to turn it down a notch. I'm sorry, but it had to be said.



To follow up on this, I've never heard you describe your female characters'

* Temperaments
* Goals
* Fears
* Likes and dislikes

Only their

* Appearances

And to a lesser degree

* Skills

The last person I encountered who described all his female characters like this was that guy I mentioned earlier in the thread--the one who wrote a scene that was supposed to be from a female character's perspective, and it was all about how sexy and ****able she was. That's why I tend to be a bit suspicious when you say you're completely innocent and all these crazy liberals are criticizing you for no reason.

To be fair, you might do better in the writing than in the describing. I turned up your last Showcase while looking through your previous posts, and I didn't see anything obviously negative in it. Mukondi doesn't show much personality, but she's only at the beginning of her story, and she has plenty of time to grow.


----------



## Steerpike

This thread will be served best if we can keep the topic focused on general principles and not on personal criticisms, unless someone asks for a critique of something they've done.


----------



## Philip Overby

I'll echo what Steerpike said:  let's end the personal criticisms.  If you care to do that, please do so in private and not taking the thread in a different direction.  

Like I said before, it's important to think of characters as being more round and not just a flat representation.  This is a thought on writing in general that I think most of us are aware of.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> This thread will be served best if we can keep the topic focused on general principles and not on personal criticisms, unless someone asks for a critique of something they've done.



As far as general principles go, what can be said that has not already been said?


----------



## Jabrosky

I don't really mind the personal criticisms even if they are directed towards me. I'm in a calm mood today, and I will concede that Feo is right when she says I focus more on my heroines' appearances than personality. In fact, I will go so far as to confess that I often conceive of my heroines as beautiful African women first before developing their personalities and other psychological characteristics. Perhaps that is the wrong way to go about character-building, but then I really do wish there were more beautiful African female characters in fiction in general.

Incidentally, Mukondi started out as a race-bent Shanna the She-Devil. Mukondi and Shanna have the same basic dinosaur-hunting jungle girl gimmick, they simply differ by racial appearance.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Jabrosky said:


> In fact, I will go so far as to confess that I often conceive of my heroines as beautiful African women first before developing their personalities and other psychological characteristics.



A fair way of starting things, I suppose--one of my characters was originally based on this.* Just be sure to develop them past that.

*She, incidentally, was based on this. Ain't Japanese fanart great?


----------



## ascanius

Steerpike said:


> Yes, I think this is right. To me, if you approach all of your important characters (not necessary for unimportant ones) as people first, with personality traits you've defined to create the character, and then proceed by treating them as autonomous individuals with certain personality traits that you've given them, then you never really have to ask yourself whether X or Y is OK because the character is male or female. All that will matter is whether the act is in character (or whether there is a good reason for it not to be), and you'll know the answer to that without ever thinking about the sex of the character.



I dont know if I agree with this 100%  I do think character sex needs to be taken into account to some degree.  the characters sex will determine how they respond to events throughout their daily lives.  For instance the AVERAGE woman is physically weaker than the AVERAGE male, yes I know there are exceptions.  I think overlooking this aspect is what results in the super warrior chick.  Their method of conflict resolution is going to be different.  Even their way of thinking about things is going to be different.  Im not talking about interests, playing with the boys, with trucks and action figures, those are interests.  What I am talking about is how events are processed.  Looking at conversations I have had with the women in my life I have noticed women place different meanings to things than men do even if they are both part of the same conversation.  Ive had my friends get angry at me because of something I said.  When I asked they told me why and I can understand how they got that idea.  However when I asked my guy friends about it they didnt reach the same conclusion at all.  For my guy friends it was simple and exactly what I said, for the girls they took meaning that I hadnt intended.  They related the conversation to themselves while the guys it was just a conversation.

I have a question, is it possible to have a stereotypical female character, not flat or undeveloped, and have them be strong.


----------



## Penpilot

I won't speak for Steerpike, but here's what I think about this.



ascanius said:


> For instance the AVERAGE woman is physically weaker than the AVERAGE male, yes I know there are exceptions.  I think overlooking this aspect is what results in the super warrior chick.



This trait is part of how you define your character regardless of sex. Is the character physically weak or physically strong? This is a question I'd ask regardless of sex. A 5'0 man would have a different outlook than a 6'5 man. Just as a 6'5 woman would have a different outlook than a 5'0 woman.



ascanius said:


> Their method of conflict resolution is going to be different.



Again, this is defined by who the character is. If a female character grew up with 5 brothers and the way she grew up solving problems with her siblings was to smack them in the face, this could be her default setting.



ascanius said:


> Even their way of thinking about things is going to be different.



Well, here are some links to articles that I found when googling up The Myth of Gender Differences. (Disclaimer. I didn't have time to check all the articles thoroughly, so please forgive me if I'm sticking a large foot into my mouth and presenting some sources of questionable veracity. Grain of Salt. This is the internet after all. But hopefully at the very least it will add food for thought.) 

Busted! Five False Myths About Gender Differences | Divine Caroline

8 Myths About Sex Differences

http://www.campbell-kibler.com/Stereo.pdf

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...bout-the-differences-in-men-and-womens-brains

5 False Myths About Gender Differences | Care2 Healthy Living


----------



## PaulineMRoss

Jabrosky said:


> In fact, I will go so far as to confess that I often conceive of my heroines as beautiful African women first before developing their personalities and other psychological characteristics.



I find this interesting. I've read entire books without a single physical description of any of the main characters. I've also read books where all the main characters are beautiful (yes, Guy Gavriel Kay, I'm looking at you). It makes no difference, unless a character's appearance impinges on the plot somehow (Helen of Troy, or some such - although even then, I'd guess she had a powerful personality as well as looks). Then there are the books where the male and female leads are both described as beautiful in chapter 1, and I think: uh-oh, romance ahoy. Usually there are smouldering looks in chapter 2, rippling muscles in chapter 3, followed shortly thereafter by hot sex. [Not, you understand, that I have any objection to hot sex... but I do like a bit of plot on the side.] 

But I have to say, American TV shows notwithstanding, most people are NOT beautiful, and I personally find such people more remote, somehow, and detached from real life. In our society, perhaps in most societies, beautiful people have everything easy, they tend to be wealthier, have better jobs and all the rest of it. They're less relateable, I suppose.

Basically, what I'm asking, in a very long-winded way, is why you start with looks? Is that important to the story you want to tell? Or is it just a personal preference? Have you ever written about people who are less than beautiful?


----------



## ascanius

Penpilot said:


> This trait is part of how you define your character regardless of sex. Is the character physically weak or physically strong? This is a question I'd ask regardless of sex. A 5'0 man would have a different outlook than a 6'5 man. Just as a 6'5 woman would have a different outlook than a 5'0 woman.



Yes this is true but place a 5 ft man next to a 5 ft women and this difference is sex's is apparent.  My little sister is about the same size as me and a black belt.  sometimes we play around fighting nothing serious.  However I know that if it ever came down to an actual fight I would only have to hit her once.  Even though we are the same size and more able to fight I can overpower her.  My other sister is taller and bigger than me yet I still know I can take her.  I think ignoring such differences is what leads to the super heroin that surpasses the male soldiers.



Penpilot said:


> Again, this is defined by who the character is. If a female character grew up with 5 brothers and the way she grew up solving problems with her siblings was to smack them in the face, this could be her default setting.



I disagree, first I know quite a few girls who grew up with brothers and they don't approach conflict the same way as a guy.  8 Myths About Sex Differences talks about aggression.  It says males tend to use physical aggression more than females.  Im not really interested in the amount but how it is achieved.  It also says aggression is more or less the same with regards to the same sex.  Here they are simply talking about the level of aggression but not how it is achieved.  The one thing I have noticed is that when guys fight its physical but once the fight is done, its done, it might get bloody but usually that is it.  Girls on the other hand don't resort as much to physical aggression but they are very good at using non physical means of aggression and it tends to be drawn out.  My points above are simply that physical differences do exist and will impact to some extent how the character responds to problems.  Im not saying use such differences to create a character but to keep them in mind.  



Penpilot said:


> Well, here are some links to articles that I found when googling up The Myth of Gender Differences. (Disclaimer. I didn't have time to check all the articles thoroughly, so please forgive me if I'm sticking a large foot into my mouth and presenting some sources of questionable veracity. Grain of Salt. This is the internet after all. But hopefully at the very least it will add food for thought.)
> 
> Busted! Five False Myths About Gender Differences | Divine Caroline
> 
> 8 Myths About Sex Differences
> 
> http://www.campbell-kibler.com/Stereo.pdf
> 
> http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...bout-the-differences-in-men-and-womens-brains
> 
> 5 False Myths About Gender Differences | Care2 Healthy Living



I read through these articles and they don't really address what I'm getting at.  I'm not talking about stereotypes such as women are better at math or what ever.  I am talking about the differences in how men and women think.

10 Ways Men and Women Communicate Differently : Discovery Channel  this explains more about what I was getting at.

my sister was telling me about how her boyfriend cried because of where he was at in his life.  We talked about this for a while and I kept telling her my thoughts and advice.  Later she grew frustrated and told me the problem was I was a guy and didn't understand the problem.  she then told me if she was talking to her girlfriends they would immediately understand that she kept bringing up the fact he was crying bothered her because her rock showed a moment of weakness and didn't know what to do about it.  The conversation had nothing to do with the difficulties they were having but how she was feeling about said difficulties, I didn't see this at all.  To me, and all the guys I know, I saw it as problem --> solution, I took the conversation at face value.  This is what I mean by guys and girls think differently, when girls talk there is more to the conversation than what is being said.  And its not just conversation but also their world view.  What is important to a guy might not necessarily be important to a girl and vice versa.


----------



## Nihal

ascanius said:


> Yes this is true but place a 5 ft man next to a 5 ft women and this difference is sex's is apparent.  My little sister is about the same size as me and a black belt.  sometimes we play around fighting nothing serious.  However I know that if it ever came down to an actual fight I would only have to hit her once.  Even though we are the same size and more able to fight I can overpower her.  My other sister is taller and bigger than me yet I still know I can take her.  I think ignoring such differences is what leads to the super heroin that surpasses the male soldiers.



When you underestimate your opponent you're giving him/her the advantage. You're also failing to consider that smaller opponents can extremely dangerous because while one of the same apparent power may try to overpower you, the smaller one is out for blood, s/he will use all of his/her power because s/he knows that s/he is in physical disadvantage. It includes not only the usual fight moves but dirty moves. Kick, bite, aim for the groin, head hits. It's what some people call the "strength of the mad".


----------



## Steerpike

Penpilot is exactly right. Developing your character based on what the average person of that sex, race, age, or whatever, might do is a mistake. Just view the character as a person, develop the character with depth in accordance with the traits you give, and go from there. I know women who can and have taken down men twice their size in fights; I know women who would lose a fight to another woman half their size. Making a decision on how female characters should be treated generally because you can beat your taller sister in a fight seems absurd to me, and it illustrates perfectly the problem of treating female characters as statistics or probabilities instead of treating them as individuals.


----------



## Chilari

Turning back to improving portrayal of female characters in our own works, can we brainstorm a few methods that the writers here who are less experienced with female characters can take away and actually use, rather than discussing abstracts and real life? What the differences between men and women are, and the degree to which this applies, varies from individual to individual, from society to society, and because we're all using different reference points and different experiences I don't think we can really come to a worthwhile conclusion; in any case that side of the discussion is moving away from what this should be, which is a writing-based topic.

So. My top tip for creating a rounded female character is this:

*Give her a goal and a reason she wants to achieve that goal.*
This can be independent of men and I think if you want to portray women in a non-sexist light it should not, most of the time, relate to sex. The goal and motivation can be suitable for a patriarchal society or it could be outside what might be normal. Maybe she's the princess of a small insignificant land and wants to secure a marriage to a prince or king or a powerful country to gain her mother's approval. Or maybe she wants to lead an army into battle against a large country to gain her mother's approval. Or her father's, for either. Maybe she wants to steal a magical artefact so she has enough money to live in comfort for the rest of her life. Maybe she wants to become a senator and make a difference for real people. I dunno. But give her something she wants and a reason to want it.

And consider making that goal completely unrelated to her gender, though hyper-feminist or conservatively feminine goals are allowed to. However, if she's not the main character, I urge you to make it utterly unrelated to the character who is the protagonist.


----------



## Mindfire

Chilari said:


> However, if she's not the main character, I urge you to make it utterly unrelated to the character who is the protagonist.



If her goal in no way relates to the protagonist, how can it possibly be relevant to the plot? It'd be like she has her own separate story completely unrelated to the main one. And if that's the case, you'd be better served by just making her subplot into an actual plot for a completely different book.


----------



## Chilari

What I meant by "unrelated to the protagonist" is, don't make her want to marry, sleep with, protect, kill or gain approval from the protagonist. Her goals can align without being directly related to the protagonist. Maybe her goal is similar to that of the protagonist - such as winning a war. Maybe it requires she go to the same place the protagonist is going, meaning she travels with him.


----------



## Steerpike

Writing tip #4 from a Joss Whedon interview:



> 4. EVERYBODY HAS A REASON TO LIVE
> Everybody has a perspective. Everybody in your scene, including the thug flanking your bad guy, has a reason. They have their own voice, their own identity, their own history. If anyone speaks in such a way that they’re just setting up the next person’s lines, then you don’t get dialogue: you get soundbites. Not everybody has to be funny; not everybody has to be cute; not everybody has to be delightful, and not everybody has to speak, but if you don’t know who everybody is and why they’re there, why they’re feeling what they’re feeling and why they’re doing what they’re doing, then you’re in trouble.


----------



## saellys

Jabrosky said:


> I consider myself pro-feminist and anti-sexist insofar as I support women having the same rights, freedoms, and responsibilities as men, but as a fantasy artist and writer myself, I _like _depicting sexy women. I am a young heterosexual male after all. For certain ideologues to accuse me of some kind of horrible misogyny simply because I like to celebrate the beauty of the idealized female form is a personal insult. They are basically telling me I can't draw whatever I want. Now I can accept that sexualizing my heroines might bias my work towards a heterosexual male fanbase, but then I am not obligated to please every single demographic group out there. I create for my own enjoyment, not to cater to the politically correct.





Jabrosky said:


> I don't really mind the personal criticisms even if they are directed towards me. I'm in a calm mood today, and I will concede that Feo is right when she says I focus more on my heroines' appearances than personality. In fact, I will go so far as to confess that I often conceive of my heroines as beautiful African women first before developing their personalities and other psychological characteristics. Perhaps that is the wrong way to go about character-building, but then I really do wish there were more beautiful African female characters in fiction in general.



Physical attributes can be a vital part of character-building (especially if you want to represent something unusual in the white male dominated fantasy genre, and you want your audience to have no question about that character's traits). It's important to not stop there, though. I'm not trying to gang up on you with the forthcoming statement, but you did ask, and in my mind this falls under critique rather than personal criticism, and this thread was started with the intent to help us improve portrayals of female characters. 

So here goes: in the two stories of yours that I've read, I came away knowing nothing about your characters as individuals aside from their physical attributes as seen through your very male gaze.

I'm not saying the male gaze or male sex drive is in any way wrong. However, when your protagonists and POV characters are women, it's important to recognize that in most cases, _they don't look at themselves the same way you look at them_. It's hard to get inside their heads when you're busy describing their bodies (or making their bodies the subject of dialogue that concerns them, or the like). They have other things to think about. 

It's good that you want more beautiful African female characters in fiction in general, but it doesn't help representation to portray them primarily as the objects of your desire at the expense of writing them like real people. I don't know what your critics beyond this forum have said specifically, but some adjustments in those areas might help dam the flood of recrimination. If you're really getting that much backlash, it's probably time to examine your work closely and see if there's something to it. Dismissing the concerns of your readers outright isn't a great move. You can say you create solely for your own enjoyment, but you're still putting your work out there for other people to read. You've said in another thread that your critics aren't in your "target audience," but they're reading your work, so they _are_ your audience. 

Again, I write this with the utmost respect, in response only to what you've posted on this forum, rather than you as a person. (This is criticism I can apply to ASOIAF too, and my post history shows how much I adore Martin.) I'm taking care to make my language as straightforward as possible without being too harsh, but if I missed something offensive or was vague on a particular point, please let me know. 



Chilari said:


> Turning back to improving portrayal of female characters in our own works, can we brainstorm a few methods that the writers here who are less experienced with female characters can take away and actually use, rather than discussing abstracts and real life? What the differences between men and women are, and the degree to which this applies, varies from individual to individual, from society to society, and because we're all using different reference points and different experiences I don't think we can really come to a worthwhile conclusion; in any case that side of the discussion is moving away from what this should be, which is a writing-based topic.
> 
> So. My top tip for creating a rounded female character is this:
> 
> *Give her a goal and a reason she wants to achieve that goal.*
> This can be independent of men and I think if you want to portray women in a non-sexist light it should not, most of the time, relate to sex. The goal and motivation can be suitable for a patriarchal society or it could be outside what might be normal. Maybe she's the princess of a small insignificant land and wants to secure a marriage to a prince or king or a powerful country to gain her mother's approval. Or maybe she wants to lead an army into battle against a large country to gain her mother's approval. Or her father's, for either. Maybe she wants to steal a magical artefact so she has enough money to live in comfort for the rest of her life. Maybe she wants to become a senator and make a difference for real people. I dunno. But give her something she wants and a reason to want it.
> 
> And consider making that goal completely unrelated to her gender, though hyper-feminist or conservatively feminine goals are allowed to. However, if she's not the main character, I urge you to make it utterly unrelated to the character who is the protagonist.



To tie in with the quote Steerpike just posted, that goal doesn't have to be accomplished in the story or tied to the plot. I don't believe it even needs to be mentioned, necessarily. I have short, medium, and long term goals I've never told anyone about. If you, the writer, know what your character's goal is, it will influence the way that character acts in ways both small and large, and automatically make them feel more three-dimensional.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> Writing tip #4 from a Joss Whedon interview:
> 
> *Snip*



*Bane voice* Well, of course!  Their reason for living is to advance the plot!


----------



## Jabrosky

PaulineMRoss said:


> Basically, what I'm asking, in a very long-winded way, is why you start with looks? Is that important to the story you want to tell? Or is it just a personal preference? Have you ever written about people who are less than beautiful?


Admittedly the beautiful part is more important if I plan romantic or at least amorous sentiments between the male and female leads. I don't fixate so much on beauty when I can't fit such a subplot into my story.



saellys said:


> Physical attributes can be a vital part of character-building (especially if you want to represent something unusual in the white male dominated fantasy genre, and you want your audience to have no question about that character's traits). It's important to not stop there, though. I'm not trying to gang up on you with the forthcoming statement, but you did ask, and in my mind this falls under critique rather than personal criticism, and this thread was started with the intent to help us improve portrayals of female characters.
> 
> So here goes: in the two stories of yours that I've read, I came away knowing nothing about your characters as individuals aside from their physical attributes as seen through your very male gaze.
> 
> I'm not saying the male gaze or male sex drive is in any way wrong. However, when your protagonists and POV characters are women, it's important to recognize that in most cases, _they don't look at themselves the same way you look at them_. It's hard to get inside their heads when you're busy describing their bodies (or making their bodies the subject of dialogue that concerns them, or the like). They have other things to think about.
> 
> It's good that you want more beautiful African female characters in fiction in general, but it doesn't help representation to portray them primarily as the objects of your desire at the expense of writing them like real people. I don't know what your critics beyond this forum have said specifically, but some adjustments in those areas might help dam the flood of recrimination. If you're really getting that much backlash, it's probably time to examine your work closely and see if there's something to it. Dismissing the concerns of your readers outright isn't a great move. You can say you create solely for your own enjoyment, but you're still putting your work out there for other people to read. You've said in another thread that your critics aren't in your "target audience," but they're reading your work, so they _are_ your audience.
> 
> Again, I write this with the utmost respect, in response only to what you've posted on this forum, rather than you as a person. (This is criticism I can apply to ASOIAF too, and my post history shows how much I adore Martin.) I'm taking care to make my language as straightforward as possible without being too harsh, but if I missed something offensive or was vague on a particular point, please let me know.


I understand what you mean, and I take no offense at all. You and Chilari make good points about needing to develop female characters beyond looks.


----------



## Kit

Steerpike said:


> Making a decision on how female characters should be treated generally because you can beat your taller sister in a fight seems absurd to me,.



He *thinks* he can beat his sister in a fight.

I have an acquaintance who also insists that despite my having trained for over a decade in three different martial arts- and him being a complete couch potato- if it ever came to a real fight, of course he would beat me, just because he has a penis. 

I hope Ascanius never says this to his sister, because it is horribly condescending, insulting, and invalidating ("No matter how long and how hard you work, it won't ever do you any good- you will always lose"... yes, that's what you would be saying to her, it's one of those things women hear you say even though you didn't actually say it).  People who train work their ASSES off, day in and day out, for years, and this is very much a core part of their identity. When you invalidate it/her by saying things like "She has a black belt, but I'd only have to hit her once" there's nothing more hurtful or infuriating you can come up with to say.

And also, the assumption is of very questionable truth. Sorry.

Women who train usually train with larger men (I work with larger men about 97% of my time), and we tailor our training to cope with that situation. We are not just playing patty cake. And a penis is *not* an automatic ticket to winning every physical fight.

There are things that people who don't train just can not comprehend. Please give your sister credit- or at the very least, the benefit of the doubt- for years of incredibly hard work that most people (male *or* female) are not capable of.


----------



## Mindfire

To be more precise, physical strength is no indicator of who will win a fight. As my Sifu says: All else being equal, speed beats power, and technique beats speed.


----------



## Subcreator

Mindfire said:


> To be more precise, physical strength is no indicator of who will win a fight. As my Sifu says: All else being equal, speed beats power, and technique beats speed.



As an example of this, one of my characters is a twelve-year-old girl with at least a modicum of crazy who is a terror in a fight. She's fast, she's ruthless, and she knows exactly where to hit. She's also based on a real person. My wife once punched a hole in a door when she was that age. I met her much later, but I've seen the door.

Sometimes, a smaller size can be a bonus if it's matched with intelligence and speed, as well as the willingness to shrug off pain. As for appearance, different cultures view beauty differently. There are some where a plump woman is much more beautiful than a thin woman, but it seems that most writers, especially in the fantasy art genre, seem to want to portray women in the modern Western mode of borderline skinny. All I'm saying is that I'd like to see a bit more variety.


----------



## PaulineMRoss

Jabrosky said:


> Admittedly the beautiful part is more important if I plan romantic or at least amorous sentiments between the male and female leads. I don't fixate so much on beauty when I can't fit such a subplot into my story.



Really? Only the beautiful people fall in love in your books? If there's no love affair down the pike, your characters can be ordinary looking, or downright plain? Honestly, that makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't much care, when I'm reading, whether characters are good looking or not, but I'd like to feel that even the plainest character can find true love eventually.

This is not a criticism, by the way. I'm just curious about writing processes (which is why I hang out with you writer people), and it strikes me as interesting to start with a character's appearance.


----------



## Ireth

PaulineMRoss said:


> Really? Only the beautiful people fall in love in your books? If there's no love affair down the pike, your characters can be ordinary looking, or downright plain? Honestly, that makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't much care, when I'm reading, whether characters are good looking or not, but I'd like to feel that even the plainest character can find true love eventually.
> 
> This is not a criticism, by the way. I'm just curious about writing processes (which is why I hang out with you writer people), and it strikes me as interesting to start with a character's appearance.



Maybe it has to do with the characters' perceptions of each other? People who are in love tend not to notice one another's flaws so much, or so they say.


----------



## Mindfire

Subcreator said:


> As an example of this, one of my characters is a twelve-year-old girl with at least a modicum of crazy who is a terror in a fight. She's fast, she's ruthless, and she knows exactly where to hit. She's also based on a real person. My wife once punched a hole in a door when she was that age. I met her much later, but I've seen the door.
> 
> Sometimes, a smaller size can be a bonus if it's matched with intelligence and speed, as well as the willingness to shrug off pain. As for appearance, different cultures view beauty differently. There are some where a plump woman is much more beautiful than a thin woman, but it seems that most writers, especially in the fantasy art genre, seem to want to portray women in the modern Western mode of borderline skinny. All I'm saying is that I'd like to see a bit more variety.



+1 to all of this. Also, there's beauty to be found in every body type so long as the person takes care of themselves.


----------



## Nebuchadnezzar

> To be more precise, physical strength is no indicator of who will win a fight. As my Sifu says: All else being equal, speed beats power, and technique beats speed.



Although we're drifting off topic, I think that this could be right and should definitely be the case in fantasy/sci-fi stories...but I struggle with it from a practical IRL perspective.  

Based on the actual fights I've seen and been in, I'd say that people will tend to forget most/all technique that they might have learned and the battle quickly degenerates into a combination of grappling plus occasional punching and kicking.  This means the victor is generally determined by a mix of size, strength, ability to ignore pain and perhaps most importantly courage or morale.  I don't think I've ever seen an actual fight that ended because one person couldn't continue; they ended because one combatant gave up or ran away (or the fight was broken up at which point people uselessly speculate about who "would have won").  

I suppose if a person could keep their head and put some bad-ass martial arts moves on someone before "the clinch" occurred, then technique and speed would beat power and size.  But I'll admit I've never actually seen that happen outside books and movies.  In most cases the verbal sparring ("the monkey dance") in the lead up to the fight results in the combatants being right next to each other and "the clinch" happens right at the beginning.

Like I say, none of this should apply to fantasy stories, where it is necessary that small, fast, skilled heroes & heroines are able to defeat the three-hundred pound muscled minions of the Dark Lord in a fight.  Though it does beg the question why the Dark Lord doesn't hire small, skilled people to be his minions...


----------



## Penpilot

ascanius said:


> The one thing I have noticed is that when guys fight its physical but once the fight is done, its done, it might get bloody but usually that is it.  Girls on the other hand don't resort as much to physical aggression but they are very good at using non physical means of aggression and it tends to be drawn out.  My points above are simply that physical differences do exist and will impact to some extent how the character responds to problems.  Im not saying use such differences to create a character but to keep them in mind.



See, you have your experiences, and I have mine. I play in a co-ed hockey league. The spirit of the league is for fun, but I have had some crazy women half my size spear me in the ribs when I wasn't looking for no other reason than because I was on the other team. I've seen women run over guys like a freight train. One of my team mates tells me she doesn't like playing hockey with women because women are way nastier than men in terms of playing dirty.

I have team mates that are 5'0 and a hundred pounds fearlessly slam in to men twice their size. Sometimes they come out on top others they don't.

All these women I've encountered while playing co-ed hockey come in all shapes, sizes, personality and talent level. Two of the smallest women are the most ferocious and talented players I know, good enough to play in the highest levels of women's hockey, but off the ice, they're girly-girls through and through, girly giggles and all. On the flip side of that, one of the tallest women I know is timid as a bunny on ice, but try telling her that to her face in the boardroom. She'll out "man" any dude in that realm. 

Some of the women I've encountered are butch and lesbians, but also know an ex-team mate of mine was a part-time model. My team is full of Moms, and all of them are very attractive. I apologise to the women out there for having to bring looks into this but my impression is if I mention a women being able to compete with a man then a typical response for some is to think she must look like a man.

Any way.

Each of us has our own experiences. Some of them are polar opposites. If that's the case, then if your character falls somewhere in between, who can say it's wrong? 



ascanius said:


> I read through these articles and they don't really address what I'm getting at.  I'm not talking about stereotypes such as women are better at math or what ever.  I am talking about the differences in how men and women think.



And the articles also talk about how social norms have effects on thinking too rather than just biological norms. Basically it's the old nature vs nurture argument.



Kit said:


> I have an acquaintance who also insists that despite my having trained for over a decade in three different martial arts- and him being a complete couch potato- if it ever came to a real fight, of course he would beat me, just because he has a penis.



This probably comes from the fact that his manhood is so large he could club a brontosaurus to death with it, and reseed the population of a galaxy with one manly... umm... burst.


----------



## Jabrosky

PaulineMRoss said:


> Really? Only the beautiful people fall in love in your books? If there's no love affair down the pike, your characters can be ordinary looking, or downright plain? Honestly, that makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't much care, when I'm reading, whether characters are good looking or not, but I'd like to feel that even the plainest character can find true love eventually.


I cannot imagine a relationship progressing beyond platonic friendship without some kind of physical attraction between the parties involved. Of course, what counts as physically attractive varies between people, not to mention whole cultures, so one man's plain Jane is another's hot babe.

I don't really care about whether or not my protagonists are "relatable" (whatever that means). I am an escapist and an idealist after all; I like getting away from the mundane drudgery of everyday existence and experiencing the extraordinary and exotic. What everyone calls relatable, I call boring.


----------



## Zero Angel

Phil the Drill said:


> I'm interested in what is meant by "case studies."  Does anyone have any suggestions as far as that goes?



So case studies, basically: we post an example, say a character bio with certain definitive scenes (such as introduction, anything character changing or character defining or character resolving), and dissect the positives and negatives of the character as it relates to representations of female characters in fantasy. Having multiple viewpoints (hopefully with the more well-known characters) would help us catch things others would miss and see things from different perspectives.

For instance, although I don't have the books on me, I assume we are mostly familiar with Hermione Granger, supporting character in every Harry Potter novel. There will probably be spoilers ahead, but if you are so late to the game that Harry Potter is being spoiled maybe you don't care? Skip ahead to the next quote if you want to read HP and haven't yet. 

Originally, her looks are described as being especially unappealing and her bossy attitude and general know-everything-ness is emphasized. Worth noting that not until she tamed her hair and did herself up did Ron really sit up and take notice (although we all knew that he at least fancied her subconsciously). Also worth mentioning that even though she is described several times as being more competent than practically everyone else put together (of the children at least), she usually is more of a "I'll set everything up, get everything ready, clean up after everyone, and help everyone do what they need to do" type of character. 

Note though, even though she is portrayed as being bossy originally, why wouldn't she be bossy nearly all the time? She seems to be the only one halfway competent until Order of Phoenix. 

Anyway, I've described her a bit slanted. Please feel free to analyze the character and chime in with viewpoints or discussion points.​


ascanius said:


> Yes this is true but place a 5 ft man next to a 5 ft women and this difference is sex's is apparent.  My little sister is about the same size as me and a black belt.  sometimes we play around fighting nothing serious.  However I know that if it ever came down to an actual fight I would only have to hit her once.  Even though we are the same size and more able to fight I can overpower her.  My other sister is taller and bigger than me yet I still know I can take her.  I think ignoring such differences is what leads to the super heroin that surpasses the male soldiers.
> 
> I disagree, first I know quite a few girls who grew up with brothers and they don't approach conflict the same way as a guy.  8 Myths About Sex Differences talks about aggression.  It says males tend to use physical aggression more than females.  Im not really interested in the amount but how it is achieved.  It also says aggression is more or less the same with regards to the same sex.  Here they are simply talking about the level of aggression but not how it is achieved.  The one thing I have noticed is that when guys fight its physical but once the fight is done, its done, it might get bloody but usually that is it.  Girls on the other hand don't resort as much to physical aggression but they are very good at using non physical means of aggression and it tends to be drawn out.  My points above are simply that physical differences do exist and will impact to some extent how the character responds to problems.  Im not saying use such differences to create a character but to keep them in mind.
> 
> I read through these articles and they don't really address what I'm getting at.  I'm not talking about stereotypes such as women are better at math or what ever.  I am talking about the differences in how men and women think.
> 
> 10 Ways Men and Women Communicate Differently : Discovery Channel  this explains more about what I was getting at.
> 
> my sister was telling me about how her boyfriend cried because of where he was at in his life.  We talked about this for a while and I kept telling her my thoughts and advice.  Later she grew frustrated and told me the problem was I was a guy and didn't understand the problem.  she then told me if she was talking to her girlfriends they would immediately understand that she kept bringing up the fact he was crying bothered her because her rock showed a moment of weakness and didn't know what to do about it.  The conversation had nothing to do with the difficulties they were having but how she was feeling about said difficulties, I didn't see this at all.  To me, and all the guys I know, I saw it as problem --> solution, I took the conversation at face value.  This is what I mean by guys and girls think differently, when girls talk there is more to the conversation than what is being said.  And its not just conversation but also their world view.  What is important to a guy might not necessarily be important to a girl and vice versa.



So, it seems as though all of your evidence is anecdotal. In other words, although it may be true in your experiences, these are just examples of things, not necessarily how things actually are. I know some smaller women that are quite capable regardless of whom they are fighting or what anatomy said opponent possesses. Similarly, I know many weak men that I would rather not have watching my six. 



Kit said:


> He *thinks* he can beat his sister in a fight.
> 
> I have an acquaintance who also insists that despite my having trained for over a decade in three different martial arts- and him being a complete couch potato- if it ever came to a real fight, of course he would beat me, just because he has a penis.
> 
> I hope Ascanius never says this to his sister, because it is horribly condescending, insulting, and invalidating ("No matter how long and how hard you work, it won't ever do you any good- you will always lose"... yes, that's what you would be saying to her, it's one of those things women hear you say even though you didn't actually say it).  People who train work their ASSES off, day in and day out, for years, and this is very much a core part of their identity. When you invalidate it/her by saying things like "She has a black belt, but I'd only have to hit her once" there's nothing more hurtful or infuriating you can come up with to say.
> 
> And also, the assumption is of very questionable truth. Sorry.
> 
> Women who train usually train with larger men (I work with larger men about 97% of my time), and we tailor our training to cope with that situation. We are not just playing patty cake. And a penis is *not* an automatic ticket to winning every physical fight.
> 
> There are things that people who don't train just can not comprehend. Please give your sister credit- or at the very least, the benefit of the doubt- for years of incredibly hard work that most people (male *or* female) are not capable of.



Agreed fully. Although it is worth mentioning that frequently the upper level ranks are not necessarily a sign of fighting prowess and can be a sign of technical knowledge and execution. It's possible that his sister is incompetent in spite of training to those levels. 

I think *many* people, both guys and girls, assume that they are more capable in "real" fights than they actually are.


----------



## Zero Angel

Jabrosky said:


> I cannot imagine a relationship progressing beyond platonic friendship without some kind of physical attraction between the parties involved. Of course, what counts as physically attractive varies between people, not to mention whole cultures, so one man's plain Jane is another's hot babe.
> 
> I don't really care about whether or not my protagonists are "relatable" (whatever that means). I am an escapist and an idealist after all; I like getting away from the mundane drudgery of everyday existence and experiencing the extraordinary and exotic. What everyone calls relatable, I call boring.



If what you can't imagine is people being attracted to people you aren't attracted to, then:
I've given this advice to you before. As long as you don't mind being *very* niche, then go ahead and write what you want to write. There are markets out there for what you want to do, or maybe just do it for yourself or publish it anonymously.


----------



## Mindfire

Nebuchadnezzar said:


> Although we're drifting off topic, I think that this could be right and should definitely be the case in fantasy/sci-fi stories...but I struggle with it from a practical IRL perspective.



Think of it this way. It doesn't matter how strong you are if you're too slow to actually land the punch. Likewise, it doesn't matter how fast you are if you leave holes in your defenses big enough to drive a truck through.


----------



## Nebuchadnezzar

> Think of it this way. It doesn't matter how strong you are if you're too slow to actually land the punch. Likewise, it doesn't matter how fast you are if you leave holes in your defenses big enough to drive a truck through.



I guess I hear that, but it seems more applicable to structured "sport" fighting with rules and procedures as opposed to the so-called IRL fight.  Boxers bob and weave and duck and keep up their guard because under the rules they can't tackle their opponents and roll around on the ground with them.  The IRL fight on the other hand tends to quickly evolve into a ground-based wrestling match with occasional punches and kicks where size and strength dominate over speed and most technique (in my experience anyway).  

I did see one IRL fight where a guy used speed and technique to put down someone a fair bit larger.  He basically punched his opponent three times in the face while the other guy was still in his "monkey dance" and didn't realize the fight was starting.  Game over, that fast.  Of course this was in high school and the puncher only served a suspension.  Someone does that as an adult in a bar and they're looking at jail time, even if they knew the other guy was going to have a go at them once he worked himself up to it.


----------



## Kit

Nebuchadnezzar said:


> Although we're drifting off topic, I think that this could be right and should definitely be the case in fantasy/sci-fi stories...but I struggle with it from a practical IRL perspective.
> 
> Based on the actual fights I've seen and been in, I'd say that people will tend to forget most/all technique that they might have learned and the battle quickly degenerates into a combination of grappling plus occasional punching and kicking.  This means the victor is generally determined by a mix of size, strength, ability to ignore pain and perhaps most importantly courage or morale.  I don't think I've ever seen an actual fight that ended because one person couldn't continue; they ended because one combatant gave up or ran away (or the fight was broken up at which point people uselessly speculate about who "would have won").
> 
> I suppose if a person could keep their head and put some bad-ass martial arts moves on someone before "the clinch" occurred, then technique and speed would beat power and size.  But I'll admit I've never actually seen that happen outside books and movies.  In most cases the verbal sparring ("the monkey dance") in the lead up to the fight results in the combatants being right next to each other and "the clinch" happens right at the beginning.





Nebuchadnezzar said:


> A few of the practical things that people who actually train hard for years learn:
> 
> You are much more likely to keep your head and remember technique if you.... um... KNOW any technique. Rednecks fighting in bars and teen hoodlums fighting on the playground do not know any technique. *MOST* people do not know any technique. Because they have not trained. (No, getting into a few drunken fistfights doesn't count. No, watching MMA on YouTube doesn't count. A few months of tai kwon do in the seventh grade counts, but only a little.)
> 
> You are much more likely to keep your head and remember technique when you have drilled it until you are literally DREAMING about doing it, over and over. It is called "muscle memory".  You try to get to the point where you don't have to think much- you just do it.
> 
> You are much more likely to keep your head and remember technique when you spar all the time, and maybe do tournaments too. Most people in today's western society are not used to hitting or choking each other. Most of them are not used to *touching* each other. Just getting in someone's personal space- or having someone get in yours- is uncomfortable. I roll around on the floor grinding against sweaty men every day- some of whose names I don't even know. I'm not going to hesitate if it comes time to put my hands on a mugger.
> 
> As far as the fabled "clinch"- many people are surprised to learn that grapping is one of the best systems for a smaller, less muscular person. My striking against a bigger guy- whose arms and legs are longer than mine and thus he can reach me before I can reach him- is inferior to my work in the clinch. Small people can fight in a barrel. The guy with the longer limbs doesn't *want* me pressed right up against him, where I have plenty of room to work, while he's cramped.
Click to expand...


----------



## Kit

Nebuchadnezzar said:


> I guess I hear that, but it seems more applicable to structured "sport" fighting with rules and procedures as opposed to the so-called IRL fight.  Boxers bob and weave and duck and keep up their guard because under the rules they can't tackle their opponents and roll around on the ground with them.  The IRL fight on the other hand tends to quickly evolve into a ground-based wrestling match with occasional punches and kicks where size and strength dominate over speed and most technique (in my experience anyway).
> 
> I did see one IRL fight where a guy used speed and technique to put down someone a fair bit larger.  He basically punched his opponent three times in the face while the other guy was still in his "monkey dance" and didn't realize the fight was starting.  Game over, that fast.  Of course this was in high school and the puncher only served a suspension.  Someone does that as an adult in a bar and they're looking at jail time, even if they knew the other guy was going to have a go at them once he worked himself up to it.



Training, as well as sport fighting, has rules because if it didn't, we would all have either quit or died after two days. It doesn't mean that we're wusses, or that we can't- or don't know how to- or are not willing to- fight dirty.  It just means that- as my tai chi teacher likes to say- "If you break your toys, you don't get to play with them any more."

If it's a real fight, one must simply switch mindsets and remember that you're not in the ring, and you can do whatever you want. 

If a wrestler can competently pin classmates in his or her school for points, s/he will be able to competently pin them on the street while punching them in the face.   The skills will carry over.


----------



## Zero Angel

Kit said:


> Nebuchadnezzar said:
> 
> 
> 
> Although we're drifting off topic, I think that this could be right and should definitely be the case in fantasy/sci-fi stories...but I struggle with it from a practical IRL perspective.
> 
> Based on the actual fights I've seen and been in, I'd say that people will tend to forget most/all technique that they might have learned and the battle quickly degenerates into a combination of grappling plus occasional punching and kicking.  This means the victor is generally determined by a mix of size, strength, ability to ignore pain and perhaps most importantly courage or morale.  I don't think I've ever seen an actual fight that ended because one person couldn't continue; they ended because one combatant gave up or ran away (or the fight was broken up at which point people uselessly speculate about who "would have won").
> 
> I suppose if a person could keep their head and put some bad-ass martial arts moves on someone before "the clinch" occurred, then technique and speed would beat power and size.  But I'll admit I've never actually seen that happen outside books and movies.  In most cases the verbal sparring ("the monkey dance") in the lead up to the fight results in the combatants being right next to each other and "the clinch" happens right at the beginning.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A few of the practical things that people who actually train hard for years learn:
> 
> You are much more likely to keep your head and remember technique if you.... um... KNOW any technique. Rednecks fighting in bars and teen hoodlums fighting on the playground do not know any technique. *MOST* people do not know any technique. Because they have not trained. (No, getting into a few drunken fistfights doesn't count. No, watching MMA on YouTube doesn't count. A few months of tai kwon do in the seventh grade counts, but only a little.)
> 
> You are much more likely to keep your head and remember technique when you have drilled it until you are literally DREAMING about doing it, over and over. It is called "muscle memory".  You try to get to the point where you don't have to think much- you just do it.
> 
> You are much more likely to keep your head and remember technique when you spar all the time, and maybe do tournaments too. Most people in today's western society are not used to hitting or choking each other. Most of them are not used to *touching* each other. Just getting in someone's personal space- or having someone get in yours- is uncomfortable. I roll around on the floor grinding against sweaty men every day- some of whose names I don't even know. I'm not going to hesitate if it comes time to put my hands on a mugger.
> 
> As far as the fabled "clinch"- many people are surprised to learn that grapping is one of the best systems for a smaller, less muscular person. My striking against a bigger guy- whose arms and legs are longer than mine and thus he can reach me before I can reach him- is inferior to my work in the clinch. Small people can fight in a barrel. The guy with the longer limbs doesn't *want* me pressed right up against him, where I have plenty of room to work, while he's cramped.
Click to expand...


Great points as usual, Kit. Can't emphasize the muscle memory point enough and the Sturgeon's Law allusion. 

I mostly do a "sport" fighting, but the reflexes and reactions that you develop are pretty fantastic compared to the untrained.


----------



## Zero Angel

Kit said:


> Training, as well as sport fighting, has rules because if it didn't, we would all have either quit or died after two days. It doesn't mean that we're wusses, or that we can't- or don't know how to- or are not willing to- fight dirty.  It just means that- as my tai chi teacher likes to say- "If you break your toys, you don't get to play with them any more."
> 
> If it's a real fight, one must simply switch mindsets and remember that you're not in the ring, and you can do whatever you want.
> 
> If a wrestler can competently pin classmates in his or her school for points, s/he will be able to competently pin them on the street while punching them in the face.   The skills will carry over.



Great point again! (ran out of rep to give -_-) 

I've made a similar point in different threads concerning fighting. I've never been in a martial arts training situation where the instructor/teacher/sensei did not stop and talk about what to do in the mythic "IRL" fight and how we don't do that in the training because we'd only be able to do it once every few months.


----------



## Nebuchadnezzar

> *MOST* people do not know any technique. Because they have not trained.
> 
> You are much more likely to keep your head and remember technique when you have drilled it until you are literally DREAMING about doing it, over and over. It is called "muscle memory". You try to get to the point where you don't have to think much- you just do it.
> 
> You are much more likely to keep your head and remember technique when you spar all the time, and maybe do tournaments too.



Fully agreed, which is why most martial arts systems don't seem very useful in the practical sense.  For technique to be useful, it has to be drilled to the level of muscle memory at full speed and strength against an actively resisting opponent.  Most martial arts systems are frankly too dangerous to allow practice against an opponent at full speed and strength, so the opportunity to develop practical skills at the muscle-memory level just isn't there.  

Exceptions exist of course -- judo was developed precisely because the founder realized this flaw in existing systems and wanted a system that could be practiced "full on".  Amateur wrestling also seems to provide a lot that could be of practical use and I'm sure each martial art contains some kind of claim to being able to help in a "real" fight.  As you observe, the mere act of getting used to putting your hands on someone and having them put their hands on you could be of some benefit.

All that said, I will observe that the first non-Japanese judo world champion was the Dutchman, Anton Geesink.  The 6'6", 270 pound Dutchman, Anton Geesink.  While speed and technique can help, in almost everything size and strength play a huge role.



> As far as the fabled "clinch"- many people are surprised to learn that grapping is one of the best systems for a smaller, less muscular person. My striking against a bigger guy- whose arms and legs are longer than mine and thus he can reach me before I can reach him- is inferior to my work in the clinch. Small people can fight in a barrel. The guy with the longer limbs doesn't *want* me pressed right up against him, where I have plenty of room to work, while he's cramped.



I'll admit I'm surprised.  In amateur wrestling, bigger wrestlers often take drastic steps to "make weight" -- i.e. go down a weight class so they can compete against smaller and weaker opponents where they can utilize a size and strength advantage. I haven't heard of bigger guys in amateur wrestling being cramped or otherwise disadvantaged against smaller opponents, but perhaps it's something specific that the system you're studying has found to exploit.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am in no way denigrating the martial arts and I have enjoyed practicing and training in them in the past.  I think they bring many benefits.  I do hesitate to afford them too much benefit in the fabled "real fight" because I'm not sure how much they actually provide and the best answer IRL is to use your brain not to get into fights.

At any rate, way off topic and I will say again that in fantasy, small skilled heroes should trump big clumsy enemies (since they're big, they must be clumsy!) every time.


----------



## Subcreator

Since we got off topic again, could a moderator split the fighting discussion into a new thread and place it in Research?


----------



## Mindfire

Kit said:


> As far as the fabled "clinch"- many people are surprised to learn that grapping is one of the best systems for a smaller, less muscular person. My striking against a bigger guy- whose arms and legs are longer than mine and thus he can reach me before I can reach him- is inferior to my work in the clinch. Small people can fight in a barrel. The guy with the longer limbs doesn't *want* me pressed right up against him, where I have plenty of room to work, while he's cramped.



Quoted for truth. As a tall guy, I feel most at home at 3rd gate where I have the reach advantage. Grappling is the last thing I want. Especially against my circle-mate McCayla. She may be about a foot shorter and 30 pounds lighter than me, but the girl is a steel trap. Seriously.


----------



## Nihal

So far we got a request for creating a ASOIAF topic and now one for fighting. I think both would be nice discussions!

By the way, I almost forgot, it's buried in my childhood memories. I used to be really good at locking my limbs around people and making them stumble. I'm the youngest daughter and used to "play" fights with my sisters, usually when we were in the pool so _almost _no harm was done. They were bigger and stronger, having the advantage. Until I managed to lock my arms and legs around them, tripping them down the water. Good times.


----------



## ascanius

Lets see



Nihal said:


> When you underestimate your opponent you're giving him/her..



1



Steerpike said:


> I know women who can and have taken..



2



Kit said:


> He *thinks* he can beat his sister in a fight.



3



Mindfire said:


> To be more precise, physical...



4



Subcreator said:


> Sometimes, a smaller size can..



5



Nebuchadnezzar said:


> Based on the actual fights...



6, though this is kinda what I was getting at in a round about way.




Penpilot said:


> See, you have your experiences, and I have mine



7



Penpilot said:


> This probably comes from the fact that his manhood is so large he could club a brontosaurus to death with it, and reseed the population of a galaxy with one manly... umm... burst.



But this was funny



Zero Angel said:


> I know some smaller women that are quite capable ...



8



Mindfire said:


> Think of it this way. It doesn't matter how strong...



9

Lests see nine out of the nine responses all addressed a single issue strongly.  lets go back to what I said.  


ascanius said:


> My points above are simply that physical differences do exist and will impact to some extent how the character responds to problems.  Im not saying use such differences to create a character but to keep them in mind.



Really are people so blind and naive, perhaps insecure, that they are unable accept the FACT that men and women are PHYSICALLY DIFFERENT.  I cannot understand how out of everything, you took this one thing and focused only on that.  You obviously think I am a complete and utter idiot with the intelligence of a slug if you honestly put this much effort into telling me that there are exceptions and this and that.  If you cannot read the post, stop and think about what is being said, than come up with a logical reply, and heaven forbid be open to the idea that maybe there might be something to what is being said then WHY THE HELL DID YOU REPLY.  Are you really so arrogant that any idea you don't agree with is automatically wrong.  



Steerpike said:


> Penpilot is exactly right. Developing your character based on what the average person of that sex, race, age, or whatever, might do is a mistake. Just view the character as a person, develop the character with depth in accordance with the traits you give, and go from there.



Again I quote.  





ascanius said:


> My points above are simply that physical differences do exist and will impact to some extent how the character responds to problems.  Im not saying use such differences to create a character but to keep them in mind.





Kit said:


> I hope Ascanius never says this to his sister, because it is horribly condescending, insulting, and invalidating ("No matter how long and how hard you work, it won't ever do you any good- you will always lose"... yes, that's what you would be saying to her, it's one of those things women hear you say even though you didn't actually say it).
> 
> There are things that people who don't train just can not comprehend. Please give your sister credit- or at the very least, the benefit of the doubt- for years of incredibly hard work that most people (male *or* female) are not capable of.



Getting back to what I was getting at.  Thanks KIT This is what I was saying if anyone even bothered to finish reading.  Guys and girls THINK DIFFERENTLY.  You took a simple statement that for me was simply to communicate information and read much deeper into it to the point you assume that I don't give my sister credit.  My guess is you first related it to yourself, possible past experiences, and then how my sister would feel.



Kit said:


> And a penis is *not* an automatic ticket to winning every physical fight.



Nor did I ever say it was.  I never once said that I wouldnt take a beating in the process, nor did I ever say I could beat my sister who is a black belt.  I simply said all it would take is just one punch.  Even my other sister I know would give me a good run for my money but I still know it is all it would take.



Zero Angel said:


> So, it seems as though all of your evidence is anecdotal. In other words, although it may be true in your experiences, these are just examples of things, not necessarily how things actually are.



O really, Keeping to the spirit of focusing on a single sentence then males and females are in fact NOT physically different.  That is great to know, whew, thank you so much for letting me know.

How about this.  10 Ways Men and Women Communicate Differently : Discovery Channel 
10 Secrets of the Male Mind : Discovery Channel 
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/21st-century-aging/201209/differences-between-men-and-women 
Understanding Ourselves: Gender Differences in the Brain 
Men and Women Use Brain Differently How Male and Female Brains Differ 
Brain differences between women and men 
Girl Brain, Boy Brain?: Scientific American

FYI Kit I really didnt mean to offend you and that meaning you took out of it is not at all what I meant.  I know its hard work and something to be proud of.   I am very proud of my sister and what she has accomplished.
And anyone else sorry if this came off harsh but comon


----------



## saellys

Nebuchadnezzar said:


> For the avoidance of doubt, I am in no way denigrating the martial arts and I have enjoyed practicing and training in them in the past.  I think they bring many benefits.  I do hesitate to afford them too much benefit in the fabled "real fight" because I'm not sure how much they actually provide and the best answer IRL is to use your brain not to get into fights.



Since someone with loads of experience and education is telling you how much they actually provide, maybe you could just go with that?


----------



## Steerpike

ascanius said:


> Really are people so blind and naive, perhaps insecure, that they are unable accept the FACT that men and women are PHYSICALLY DIFFERENT.  I cannot understand how out of everything, you took this one thing and focused only on that.  You obviously think I am a complete and utter idiot with the intelligence of a slug if you honestly put this much effort into telling me that there are exceptions and this and that.  If you cannot read the post, stop and think about what is being said, than come up with a logical reply, and heaven forbid be open to the idea that maybe there might be something to what is being said then WHY THE HELL DID YOU REPLY.  Are you really so arrogant that any idea you don't agree with is automatically wrong.



Ascanius, based on this paragraph, you might want to consider taking a break from the thread. There's no need for this kind of commentary in the thread, so lets get back on the topic itself and not the people engaged in discussing it.


----------



## Nebuchadnezzar

Agreed that we probably need a new thread on this one...



> If a wrestler can competently pin classmates in his or her school for points, s/he will be able to competently pin them on the street while punching them in the face. The skills will carry over.



I don't know... I think the question is whether the wrestler can competently pin them on the street when s/he is _being punched _in the face.  When you're an amateur wrestler, you don't have to worry about being punched in the face -- it's against the rules, so you never train for it and critically the possibility of it happening is not part of your carefully drilled muscle memory.  I think the key to porting martial skills into the fabled "street" is probably not so much all the things you are now allowed to do that you've never done before, it's all the things your opponent is now allowed to do that you never really had to worry about.

That said, I still believe that amateur wrestling could provide some people with useful skills for the IRL fight.

And again, for the record, big fan of the martial arts and highly encourage that people practice, train and enjoy them for all kinds of reasons.  Just be conscious that size and strength are very seldom irrelevant in a fight.  When the untrained 6'4" redneck who benches 350 starts acting up in the bar, it's better for anyone to just call the police regardless of his lack of technique.  And it would be very dangerous to assume that because he's big, he's slow.


----------



## ascanius

yeah point taken.  A break sounds good too.


----------



## Nebuchadnezzar

> Since someone with loads of experience and education is telling you how much they actually provide, maybe you could just go with that?



I didn't realize the martial artists on this board had used their experience and education in real-life fights.  My bad.


----------



## Steerpike

ascanius said:


> yeah point taken.  A break sounds good too.



Thank you. I just don't want to see the thread go off the rails again (though it has gone off topic a couple of times)


----------



## saellys

ascanius, just for clarification, here's the thing you said that got such an overwhelming response (emphasis mine). 



ascanius said:


> My little sister is about the same size as me and a black belt.  sometimes we play around fighting nothing serious.  However I know that if it ever came down to an actual fight *I would only have to hit her once*.  Even though we are the same size and more able to fight I can overpower her.  My other sister is taller and bigger than me yet I still know I can take her.  I think ignoring such differences is what leads to the super heroin that surpasses the male soldiers.



It's great that you're proud of your little sister, but you might want to reconsider dismissing her skills.


----------



## Steerpike

Nebuchadnezzar said:


> Agreed that we probably need a new thread on this one...



Yeah, not a bad idea. One of you interested in the topic should feel free to begin a new thread discussing it if you wish!


----------



## saellys

So, who's everyone's favorite hand-to-hand fighting female character in a fantasy story?


----------



## Steerpike

saellys said:


> So, who's everyone's favorite hand-to-hand fighting female character in a fantasy story?



Jen Yu?

/10char


----------



## Zero Angel

Who's the monk in Cleric Quintet? Danica Maupoissant? That one!


----------



## Kit

ascanius said:


> FYI Kit I really didnt mean to offend you and that meaning you took out of it is not at all what I meant.  I know its hard work and something to be proud of.   I am very proud of my sister and what she has accomplished.



I try to give most people the benefit of the doubt that they didn't (consciously) mean to completely invalidate someone's identity and work; which is part of the reason I wanted to point that out. It hurts me and pisses me off when men (especially men who have no training) say the "I would still beat you" thing, and I can garantee that it would hurt and piss off your sister to hear it from you (whether she will admit that to you or not). So just please don't.

(Note: it's not any better to hear  "I know its hard work and something to be proud of.   I am very proud of you and what you have accomplished. But if it came to a real fight, of course I would beat you." My aforementioned acquaintance thought that that made it okay- and really couldn't understand why I was still torqued off. Just leave the last sentence out completely.)


----------



## Nebuchadnezzar

> So, who's everyone's favorite hand-to-hand fighting female character in a fantasy story?



Barbara Hambly's Starhawk or Jennifer Roberson's Del.  Starhawk probably gets the nod since Hambly didn't feel the need to make her really attractive in addition to being a good fighter and soldier.  I also like the fact that her male companion Sunwolf is getting a little long in the tooth and developing a bald spot.  We don't all have to be models to be heroes.


----------



## Ankari

saellys said:


> So, who's everyone's favorite hand-to-hand fighting female character in a fantasy story?



Mine.  Her name is Amra.


----------



## Zero Angel

Ankari said:


> Mine.  Her name is Amra.



I don't have a hand-to-hand specialist!!!!


----------



## Mindfire

...Wow. I missed a lot. Ascanius came out swinging.  Glad the thread is still open though.


----------



## Feo Takahari

I just realized that, not counting video games, things I've written, and the video game I've written, the only stories I've read with female martial artists are realistic fiction. Fantasy heroines are much more likely to be archers.

(I do have two close-quarters fighters in _Gracie_, though they might not count. One's a nonhuman, very strong for her size, and prone to biting and clawing. The other's a knife-fighter, although she's formally trained and considers herself a martial artist.)


----------



## Chime85

From what I have read of this thread, I think we are all in a general consensus. That is, to write about what we want. Now, I have no obligations, or any right to remove that ideal from anybody. By all means, I may not agree with what someone says (or doesn't say), but I'll put my life on the line for their right to say (or don't say) it. 

 That said, I see no reason why we cannot double check our works, questioning ourselves on our own merits. Are we writing decent characters? If you can answer yes, to that simple question, you are well on your way to dis-barraging the social adepts that separate our conceptions regarding gender roles.


----------



## saellys

Dis-barraging... the social adepts... Sorry, I just had a really rough derby practice, so maybe I'll be able to parse this in the morning.


----------



## Penpilot

saellys said:


> So, who's everyone's favorite hand-to-hand fighting female character in a fantasy story?



Not sure if this counts as fantasy, but Buffy The Vampire Slayer.


----------



## Ireth

Penpilot said:


> Not sure if this counts as fantasy, but Buffy The Vampire Slayer.



Let's see... vampires, werewolves, demons, witches... pretty sure that's fantasy. ^^ I second your opinion, Buffy's awesome.


----------



## Mask

Anyone know good examples of a strong, feminine female character?

I remember someone telling of their time in a fencing club, how there were these women who loved being girly and wearing pink armour for fencing. They described them as, "scary", because of their tendency to beat all comers in fencing, despite embracing girliness.

That seems very interesting, to me. But I have trouble thinking of examples in fiction who are both strong and feminine. Best I can think of is Lana from Future Boy Conan and the girl from Laputa.


----------



## Kit

Mask said:


> I remember someone telling of their time in a fencing club, how there were these women who loved being girly and wearing pink armour for fencing. They described them as, "scary", because of their tendency to beat all comers in fencing, despite embracing girliness.



It is a constant struggle to be taken seriously as a woman in the martial arts. As a general rule, if you find yourself facing an opponent wearing Hello Kitty apparel or something, that is the person to be scared of- She is good enough to not give a crap about how she's coming off.


----------



## Ophiucha

Mask said:


> Anyone know good examples of a strong, feminine female character?



Buffy Summers and, eventually, Cordelia Chase both qualify. I recall an episode of _Angel_ where the titular character was being a bit of an arse for most of the season and everyone had basically forgiven him except Cordelia, whose opinion was really the most important, and Wesley was giving Angel the talk about how he's going to have to earn her trust again and then you just hear her scream from the other room and run in with six bags of clothes and instantly forgives Angel for everything because he bought her cute jeans.  But she's also fierce as heck, and eventually she gets pretty powerful as well. But she still has sass battles with one of the lady villains over who was better shoes.

Snow White on _Once Upon A Time_ is one of the strongest female characters on her show, save perhaps for Regina and Mulan. A lot of supernatural TV shows have at least one femme vampire/werewolf. Caroline from _Vampire Diaries_, Erica from _Teen Wolf_ (and Lydia, despite not being a werewolf, seems to be pretty strong herself). Ciri from _The Witcher_ novels. A couple of Tarantino's female characters probably qualify - Lucy Liu's from _Kill Bill_ was wearing a pretty white kimono during her fight scene. And if you start delving into comics and anime, well, you won't ever leave. Japan practically has an entire genre just for that, with 'magical girl' shows like _Sailor Moon_.


----------



## saellys

Strong (in this case, both possessing developed character arcs and motivations, and wielding some measure of power or making progress toward accomplishing a goal), feminine (as in not transgressing gender roles in their society, which frequently mirror such roles in our own) female characters are all over ASOIAF, as well. 

Sorry for the long-winded parenthetical asides; the phrase "strong female characters" can be, and frequently is, used to mean absolutely anything.


----------



## Mindfire

Kit said:


> It is a constant struggle to be taken seriously as a woman in the martial arts. As a general rule, if you find yourself facing an opponent wearing Hello Kitty apparel or something, that is the person to be scared of- She is good enough to not give a crap about how she's coming off.



Really? I haven't noticed this prejudice much. But then again, my martial arts experience is extremely limited. Only two years or so. But still, all the female martial arts I've had contact with seem to be well respected, regardless of rank.


----------



## Kit

Mindfire said:


> Really? I haven't noticed this prejudice much. But then again, my martial arts experience is extremely limited. Only two years or so. But still, all the female martial arts I've had contact with seem to be well respected, regardless of rank.



Oh, the misogyny is there; although usually moreso with civilians than other MA students or teachers. But it's there.


----------



## Mindfire

Kit said:


> Oh, the misogyny is there; although usually moreso with civilians than other MA students or teachers. But it's there.



"Civilians." lol.

Although I'd be a tad more careful about using the word "misogyny." Disrespect of women, casual or blatant, doesn't necessarily imply outright hatred.


----------



## Kit

Misogyny is misogyny IMHO. Yes, there are gradients of it, but I call it what it is.


----------



## saellys

Mindfire said:


> Although I'd be a tad more careful about using the word "misogyny." Disrespect of women, casual or blatant, doesn't necessarily imply outright hatred.



Is this the part where we try to limit use of the word misogyny only to situations where women are indisputably treated as second-class citizens and systematically persecuted by everyone around them, thereby making it inapplicable to situations we in the western world encounter every day? The part where we adhere strictly to the dictionary definition of the word and ignore its more insidious manifestations? Can we skip this part? Because not only is that straying into politics and therefore verboten, but disrespect of women is misogynistic behavior. Saying, "Hey, that's misogyny!" might actual wake a person up and make them think about the crap that comes out of their mouth, the same way saying, "Hey, that's racism!" might make someone think twice about repeating racist jokes even though they themselves would never identify as either misogynist or racist.


----------



## Zero Angel

Most people don't want to admit their own bigotry, and I do believe that some don't realize it, so let's call it what it is to wake up the most people. I myself was always unaware of the hurtfulness in saying something was "gay", although this was also encouraged by the gay people that I was friends with. I know now and modify the behavior.

However, let's also bear in mind that we are on a writing forum, so if there's one thing that can start an argument, it's one on semantics


----------



## Mindfire

saellys said:


> Is this the part where we try to limit use of the word misogyny only to situations where women are indisputably treated as second-class citizens and systematically persecuted by everyone around them, thereby making it inapplicable to situations we in the western world encounter every day? The part where we adhere strictly to the dictionary definition of the word and ignore its more insidious manifestations? Can we skip this part? Because not only is that straying into politics and therefore verboten, but disrespect of women is misogynistic behavior. Saying, "Hey, that's misogyny!" might actual wake a person up and make them think about the crap that comes out of their mouth, the same way saying, "Hey, that's racism!" might make someone think twice about repeating racist jokes even though they themselves would never identify as either misogynist or racist.



Actually I'd advocate avoiding the word misogyny _because_ it politicizes the conversation. It immediately makes the matter a political issue instead of one of simple respect and courtesy. Sticking to the dictionary definition, which you seem dissatisfied with, helps avoid this. And the comparison to racism is not accurate, I feel, because someone doesn't have to actively hate something to be a racist. Casual discrimination is enough. Not so with misogyny. The word explicitly means hatred of women. And I would be cautious of construing a simple act of disrespect, egregious though it may be, as an act of hatred. That would be tantamount to accusing every white woman who glanced nervously at me as if I would steal her purse of being in the Ku Klux Klan. Somehow I don't think calling her a Klansman (Klanswoman?) is going to help my cause. And in general, I don't think shock value is the best way to go about convincing someone to reflect on their actions and choose to better themselves. What's more, I'm kind of an uptight, logical sort (most of the time. I can be positively Vulcan until my human eccentricities kick in), so I think dictionary definitions are important. Sticking to them helps curb semantics arguments like this one.


----------



## Steerpike

I just looked up half a dozen definitions, and not all of them include hatred as part of it. As with many things, it depends on which definition you want to use. There is the literal definition, if you look at the root of the word, and then the various definitions determined by use. "Sinister" doesn't have to mean left-handed or on the left side, for example. 

Wikipedia addresses the issue if anyone wants to give further consideration to various usages: Misogyny - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And now, back to your regularly scheduled thread!


----------



## Kit

Mindfire said:


> Actually I'd advocate avoiding the word misogyny _because_ it politicizes the conversation. It immediately makes the matter a political issue instead of one of simple respect and courtesy. Sticking to the dictionary definition, which you seem dissatisfied with, helps avoid this. And the comparison to racism is not accurate, I feel, because someone doesn't have to actively hate something to be a racist. Casual discrimination is enough. Not so with misogyny. The word explicitly means hatred of women. And I would be cautious of construing a simple act of disrespect, egregious though it may be, as an act of hatred. That would be tantamount to accusing every white woman who glanced nervously at me as if I would steal her purse of being in the Ku Klux Klan. Somehow I don't think calling her a Klansman (Klanswoman?) is going to help my cause. And in general, I don't think shock value is the best way to go about convincing someone to reflect on their actions and choose to better themselves. What's more, I'm kind of an uptight, logical sort (most of the time. I can be positively Vulcan until my human eccentricities kick in), so I think dictionary definitions are important. Sticking to them helps curb semantics arguments like this one.



I am completely boggled as to how/why you categorize lower levels of discrimination against women as being somehow more acceptable than lower levels of discrimination against black people. Neither is okay. 

And yes, it is a political issue. You seem to want to downgrade it to an ettiquette snafu, and a debatable one at that. No way.


----------



## Mindfire

Kit said:


> I am completely boggled as to how/why you categorize lower levels of discrimination against women as being somehow more acceptable than lower levels of discrimination against black people. Neither is okay.
> 
> And yes, it is a political issue. You seem to want to downgrade it to an ettiquette snafu, and a debatable one at that. No way.



Did I _say_ it was more acceptable? Because I don't think I ever said it was more acceptable.


----------



## Jabrosky

Kit said:


> I am completely boggled as to how/why you categorize lower levels of discrimination against women as being somehow more acceptable than lower levels of discrimination against black people. Neither is okay.


I don't think he means to say that sexism is more acceptable than racism. Notice he is talking not about the subordination of women but the hatred of them. You don't need to be hostile towards women to support their subordination.


----------



## saellys

Mindfire said:


> Actually I'd advocate avoiding the word misogyny _because_ it politicizes the conversation. It immediately makes the matter a political issue instead of one of simple respect and courtesy. Sticking to the dictionary definition, which you seem dissatisfied with, helps avoid this. And the comparison to racism is not accurate, I feel, because someone doesn't have to actively hate something to be a racist. Casual discrimination is enough. Not so with misogyny. The word explicitly means hatred of women. And I would be cautious of construing a simple act of disrespect, egregious though it may be, as an act of hatred. That would be tantamount to accusing every white woman who glanced nervously at me as if I would steal her purse of being in the Ku Klux Klan. Somehow I don't think calling her a Klansman (Klanswoman?) is going to help my cause. And in general, I don't think shock value is the best way to go about convincing someone to reflect on their actions and choose to better themselves. What's more, I'm kind of an uptight, logical sort (most of the time. I can be positively Vulcan until my human eccentricities kick in), so I think dictionary definitions are important. Sticking to them helps curb semantics arguments like this one.



I don't see how we can take this discussion anywhere. You say casual discrimination is enough to earn the label of racism; I say it's enough to earn the label of misogyny. People have the same visceral reaction when they're called out for saying something racist as they do when they're called out for saying something misogynistic. A racist joke is still racist whether or not someone subscribes to particular prejudices, and a misogynistic joke is still misogynistic whether or not a person identifies as explicitly hating women. 

It's less that I'm dissatisfied with the dictionary definition and more that I'm dissatisfied with how easily people use that definition to split hairs over whether particular behavior signals outright hatred. That waters down the discussion to the point of meaninglessness. What it signals is irrelevant. What it perpetuates is the issue.

Let's go back to fantasy now, yeah?


----------



## Mindfire

A final word in my defense: I have combed my post multiple times and I cannot fathom where you got the idea that I said disrespect towards women is "more acceptable" or that it is an "etiquette snafu". What I mean is that calling every man who shows you discriminatory treatment a "misogynist" is a bit like me responding to every incident of casual racism with a sarcastic "yes, massah", or the more direct, "SCREW YOU, KLANSMAN!"

You can see how that might not exactly be the best course of action.


----------



## saellys

I didn't say that I'd call anyone who showed me discriminatory treatment a misogynist, and neither did Kit, for that matter. Both of us said that we point out misogyny when we see it, and misogyny is a really important word that is, for many reasons, stronger than your preferred "disrespect toward women" and more likely to make people look seriously at what they're doing.


----------



## Philip Overby

Back to women in *fantasy* please.


----------



## Ophiucha

I don't think saying something misogynistic = being a misogynist. It's casual misogyny, often unconscious and likely unintended, but still reinforcing a stereotype and potentially being offensive. Just like a lot of casual racism. Unintended, unconscious, but still problematic. I don't assume every person who makes a joke about me being 'in the kitchen' (as I am a female chef) is automatically a misogynist, but that doesn't make what they said okay or not misogynistic just because they theoretically know better.

Semantic arguments, I suppose.

Favourite female fantasy author, anyone?


----------



## Mask

I really hate word play... During the genocide of Rawanda, you know what was going on? The US public were arguing whether it could be called genocide or not. It was genocide.

Similarly, let's try to be accurate with our word use. Do we really want to label the ill-taught and foolish as the same as the downright psychopathic? I don't think that would be very fair.


----------



## Steerpike

So, someone give me their top five "strong" female characters from fantasy fiction. Five characters where you'd say the author got it right.


----------



## Jabrosky

I rather like Dossouye, one of Charles R. Saunder's "sword & soul" heroines. She is the best example of a WoC (Woman of Color) protagonist I can recall reading for the moment.


----------



## Steerpike

Jabrosky said:


> I rather like Dossouye, one of Charles R. Saunder's "sword & soul" heroines. She is the best example of a WoC (Woman of Color) protagonist I can recall reading for the moment.



I don't know that author. I'll have to look him up.


----------



## Philip Overby

This is something that hasn't been discussed much in this thread: women fantasy writers.  

I really like J.V. Jones.  She's in that "gritty" camp in some ways, but her novel A Cavern in Black Ice (maybe the title is slightly different?) is really good.  I also like the sword and sorcery of C.L. Moore that follows Jirel of Joiry, a great warrior that goes on many adventures.  Jirel is a pretty tough character and she often confronts witches and trolls and the like.  Good stuff.

Top 5 Female Characters in my Book:

1.  Jirel of Joiry
2.  Cersei Lannister
3.  Katniss Everdeen
4.  Daenerys Targanyen
5.  Sookie Stackhouse


----------



## Mask

Steerpike said:


> So, someone give me their top five "strong" female characters from fantasy fiction. Five characters where you'd say the author got it right.


 Gladly .

MC of Nausica, Lana from Future Boy Conan, E from The Incredibles (Elasta Girl was very good too), and the Dragon girl and Geoffrey's unfortunate FiancÃ©e from Game of Thrones.

If I gave it a longer, harder thought, with all the characters I can think of--that list might be rather different. But those are some of the characters who come to mind.


----------



## Steerpike

Some female writers I like who wrote Fantasy (among other things, in some cases):

Octavia Butler
Tanith Lee
Storm Constantine
Angela Carter
Sherri Tepper


----------



## Steerpike

For characters, Paks, from Sheepfarmer's Daughter has to be mentioned.

I also like Tattersail, from Steven Erikson's Garden of the Moon. The thing about Tattersail - she's tough. She's in command of the mages of the 2nd mage cadre. She's a love interest. And Erikson doesn't force her into being some lithe sex symbol. She's described as a fat woman. I like the fact that he took the characteristics that made her strong, independent, and likable, but then didn't build the character as some lean, large-breasted woman the men drooled over. For some reason, authors tend to take a female character you're supposed to like, and even if they give her good personal traits they feel like she has to be overtly sexy as well.


----------



## Ankari

Phedre from Jacqueline Carey's _Kushiel's Dart_

Moraine Sedai from Robert Jordan's _Wheel of Time_

Arya Stark from George RR Martin's _A Song of Ice and Fire_

Tavore Paran from Steven Erikson's _Malazan Book of the Fallen_

The Lady from Glen Cook's _The Black Company_


----------



## Ophiucha

A couple of characters who spring to mind,

Jane from _The Iron Dragon's Daughter_, by Michael Swanwick. She is a fantastic protagonist in a dark science fantasy novel for a lot of reasons, most notably that she really is nothing special. I love it. From a feminist angle, this is also a book that explores female sexuality a lot more than anything you'll find in the regular SFF section of the book store. I seem to recall her even nicknaming her 'little Jane'.

Ista from _Paladin of Souls_, by Lois McMaster Bujold. An older female protagonist, nigh unheard of, and a mother. Perhaps one of the most traditionally feminine lead characters of a novel, and a fantastic novel at that. Pretty sure it snagged 'Best Novel' in all three of the big awards for SFF.

And my five favourite female fantasy authors:

Ursula K. LeGuin
Nnedi Okorafor
Catherynne M. Valente
Mercedes Lackey
Octavia Butler


----------



## Steerpike

Ankari said:


> Phedre from Jacqueline Carey's _Kushiel's Dart_
> 
> Moraine Sedai from Robert Jordan's _Wheel of Time_
> 
> Arya Stark from George RR Martin's _A Song of Ice and Fire_
> 
> Tavore Paran from Steven Erikson's _Malazan Book of the Fallen_
> 
> The Lady from Glen Cook's _The Black Company_



All good picks, in my opinion.


----------



## Mindfire

Do superheroes count as fantasy? If so, I've always like Barbara Gordon. Wonder Woman is cool too, although depending on the writer she can get... abrasive.



Spoiler: Wonder Woman being abrasive











yeah... But then again, it was Frank Miller.



I don't really count superheroes, so I'd say:

-Eowyn (LOTR)
-Amara (Codex Alera)
-Maggie Folchart (Inkworld Trilogy)
-Maurynna Kyrissaean (The Last Dragonlord, Dragon and Phoenix)
-Mulan (has a dragon. totally counts.)


----------



## Philip Overby

I've heard Octavia Butler, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Mercedes Lackey's names mentioned a lot in discussion of great fantasy writers.  I almost bought a short story collection of LeGuin's Earthsea stories the other day I found at a bookstore here in Japan.  Can anyone recommend "starting books" for these authors?


----------



## Steerpike

For Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, Kindred, and Fledgling are all quite good. Kindred is about a black woman from modern times who is uncontrollable shifted back in time into one of her ancestors in the south during slavery.

Angela Carter (yeah, you didn't ask) - her book of short stories called The Bloody Chamber.


----------



## Zero Angel

Miyazaki's got two great ones in Nausicaa from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Sophie of Howl's Moving Castle (although that's shared with Diana Wynne Jones version). 

Lessa from Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of PERN books.

I don't like any of the female characters in GRRM's books. They're too human.


----------



## Mindfire

Phil the Drill said:


> I've heard Octavia Butler, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Mercedes Lackey's names mentioned a lot in discussion of great fantasy writers.  I almost bought a short story collection of LeGuin's Earthsea stories the other day I found at a bookstore here in Japan.  Can anyone recommend "starting books" for these authors?



As far as LeGuin goes, read the Earthsea books if you haven't already. But stop after you read The Farthest Shore. The ones she wrote later go... a bit off the rails. They also have considerably less action, which is saying something, and can feel a bit dull.


----------



## Ophiucha

Haha, Frank Miller.

Mercedes Lackey is famous for the _Valdemar_ series, which is like 30-something book longs and still going. The first book in that series (by publication order) is called _Arrows of the Queen_. It's a damn good series, but obviously a bit of a commitment. They are grouped into trilogies, though, which makes it a bit easier to get through.

_A Wizard of Earthsea_, the first book in the _Earthsea _series, is a good place to start with LeGuin. She's written a lot of great stuff, and she has a lot of short stories you can find in various anthologies if you want to get a taste. If you like science fiction, she's known for _The Left Hand of Darkness_, which is regarded by many to be the best work of feminist science fiction. Many even place it above _The Handmaid's Tale_ (Margaret Atwood).

Octavia Butler is mostly science fiction, but a lot of her works blur the line. _Kindred_, though dealing with time travel, definitely seems more like a fantasy novel. It is my favourite of her works; I wouldn't say there is a definitive best place to start for her. _Fledgling_ is about vampires, though from a more SF perspective. Most of her other books are part of a series. I think all of her works are fantastic; probably one of the most _consistently _good authors out there.


----------



## Steerpike

Ophiucha said:


> Octavia Butler is mostly science fiction, but a lot of her works blur the line. _Kindred_, though dealing with time travel, definitely seems more like a fantasy novel. It is my favourite of her works; I wouldn't say there is a definitive best place to start for her. _Fledgling_ is about vampires, though from a more SF perspective. Most of her other books are part of a series. I think all of her works are fantastic; probably one of the most _consistently _good authors out there.



There is an audio version of Parable of the Sower read by Lynne Thigpen that is just wonderful.


----------



## Zero Angel

I used to enjoy LeGuin's Earthsea books, but they quickly wore off. I'm not a fan any longer.


----------



## Ophiucha

I adore the first two, but the later _Earthsea _books are hit-and-miss. Not bad, I don't think, but there is a drop in quality. The first is a classic, though, so I'd say it's worth reading. I think she's much better at writing science fiction, though.

On the subject of female authors, let's not forget what half of the people under 30's _first _fantasy author was: J.K. Rowling.

She had quite the range of female characters in her stories, and I thought she did a good job writing them. Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, Molly Weasley (c'mon who doesn't love Molly?), Bellatrix LeStrange, Narcissa Malfoy... great selection. I wish a few of them had gotten bigger supporting roles, particularly the Gryffindor girls who were in Harry's year. We got a huge character arc with Neville Longbottom and plenty of time was spent on Seamus and Dean, but Lavender was only really in one book, and her character wasn't fantastically developed, and the only thing I recall Parvati doing was going to the Yule Ball.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

hmm... Nobody's tossed in Tanya Huff, so I will.  Fantastic, strong, funny, and flawed female characters in pretty much everything she writes.  One of my favorites is Vicki Nelson from her Blood books.

Also, Robert Heinlein wrote some truly unforgettable female characters.  Maureen Johnson, Lazarus Long's mother, from _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_was awesome!  However, I don't recommend that book for the feint of heart. 

I've heard _Left Hand of Darkness_ described as feminist fiction, but when I read through it I honestly didn't see that.  I was left with the impression that whenever one of her androgynous aliens leaned toward their female aspects that they became weak and rather vapid.  The writing was brilliant, and the idea certainly ahead of it's time, but the execution I felt was lacking.  Heinlein's _I Will Fear No Evil_ would probably qualify as being more feminist.


----------



## Chilari

Steerpike said:


> So, someone give me their top five "strong" female characters from fantasy fiction. Five characters where you'd say the author got it right.



Susan from the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. She's pretty kick ass.

Tiffany Aching, also from Discworld. Actually, if it comes to it, all the witch characters from Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg to Magrat and Agnes. There's real variety in their outlooks, but they're all strong characters. Agnes is no-nonsense, Tiffany is similar in some ways but more sort of "things need to get done and I'd better be the one to do them".

Althea from the Liveship Traders trilogy by Robin Hobb. Actually all of Robin Hobb's female characters are really good - she shows real variety on her characters, their motivations, their desires, the degree to which they adhere to social expectations and so on.

I've got a soft spot for Sophie Hatter in Howl's Moving Castle by Diane Wynne Jones. She has a good mix of strengths and weaknesses that make her feel so real as a character. She causes as many problems as she solves, always with the best of intentions but perhaps not always with the greatest degree of thought before acting, but without actually getting as far as to be holding the idiot ball.

Eowyn in Lord of the Rings. She walks that line between what's expected of her socially and breaking social expectations to do the right thing. While her brother is in exile, she cares for her uncle - nursing being considered feminine, certainly in Tolkein's time - but she recognises that being meek and feminine just won't do when the orcs are bearing down on them, and she won't be pushed aside.


----------



## Chilari

Zero Angel said:


> Miyazaki's got two great ones in Nausicaa from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Sophie of Howl's Moving Castle (although that's shared with Diana Wynne Jones version).



No. Just no. Miyazaki's Sophie is not a good character. She's too reactive, too content to let Howl sort everything out, too passive. She's much better in the book.


----------



## Mask

I quite liked Sophie from the film. She gets turned into an old woman... and just toughs her way through it! The world keeps throwing crazy stuff at her, but she doesn't let it stop her. I don't consider her reactive; I think of her as but stalwart and unflinching.


----------



## Chilari

Have you read the book, Mask? The only bits of the movie that were any good were where they stayed close to the book. When things diverged, it got bad. Towards the end, Sophie is such a wet blanket passive character in the film. In the book she's still proactive. As for the "tough old woman", that's a favouroite trope of Miyazaki's. All his old women are like that. She lacks individuality throughout, with the age thing meaning that in the film, she gets two different personalities - tough old woman and sweet passive heroine, neither of which are unseen in Miyazaki's other movies. In fact I'd go as far as to say he really doesn't create interesting female characters, for how many of them are protagonists in his movies. They're almost none of the proactive except Nausicaa and Kiki, but rather reactive - following where the story takes them, doing what they're told they should do, letting others decide things for them. But even Nausicaa and Kiki are fairly flat, dull characters. There's barely any substance to them. In what way do any of Miyazaki's female main characters - Nausicaa, Kiki, Chihiro, Laputa, Mononoke and so on - actually stand out from one another in characterisation? It's all in their history and their social standing and what happens to them. Their motivations are plot-dictated; without them they are blank canvasses. Take them all from their individual stories and put them all in the same context, and they'd all just stand there waiting for something to happen or someone to explain to them what's going on.


----------



## Philip Overby

I personally love Miyazaki's movies, but not for any character reason.  I think his worlds are amazing and most of his work is more plot-driven.  As far as his women characters, even if they're one-dimensional, I still find them really interesting.  Mononoke riding the wolf is an image burned into my mind, the same as Chihiro giving the bath to whatever that thing is in Spirited Away.  Mononoke is not much different than a lot of other heroines:  she has something she wants to fight for and she protects it.  It doesn't have to go much deeper than that.  For a book, yes, you need a lot more characterization, but for a movie most of Miyazaki's male characters aren't any deeper than the female ones, in my opinion.


----------



## Ophiucha

Personally, I don't _mind _reactive characters. Not all stories need to have a proactive protagonist, in my opinion. _Alice in Wonderland_ is a fantasy classic and Alice does very little but keep walking her way through the story. Both times, if you extend it to _Through the Looking-Glass_. Being reactive doesn't necessarily make you a bad character, it just tends to make you a bit of a static one. And I think that's okay. Chihiro, in my opinion, is as fully developed as we need her to be from the very beginning of the story. From her trying to keep her parents from eating the food to her 'picking' her parents from out of the pigs in the pen. It's definitely unusual, and I think it is more common in non-Western literature to have a static protagonist (which is something to consider when discussing Miyazaki), but I don't feel like the character is underdeveloped just because she doesn't develop during the story, we just end up seeing more of her as she already was.

Chihiro and Kiki are my favourite of Miyazaki's female protagonists. And I do agree that the book for _Howl's Moving Castle_ was a lot better than the film; it's easily one of my least favourite of his films, right alongside Porco Rosso. Though it isn't as bad as his son's attempt, while we're on the subject of Ursula K. LeGuin, to adapt the _Earthsea_ books. Lord have mercy, _Tales from Earthsea_ was a disappointing film.


----------



## Chilari

Ophiucha said:


> Though it isn't as bad as his son's attempt, while we're on the subject of Ursula K. LeGuin, to adapt the _Earthsea_ books. Lord have mercy, _Tales from Earthsea_ was a disappointing film.



Oh great, thanks. I'd almost wiped that from my memory. Now I have to start again.

Actually, truth be told, Tales from Earthsea inspired the story that became Ailith's Gift, which I published in Myths Inscribed. Basically, my fiance Matt raged so hard over the ending - he hates it when characters turn into dragons at the end of the story, which is also why he won't play Oblivion any more and why he doesn't like Spirited Away - that I promised I'd write a story which was the opposite: a dragon would turn into a man at the beginning of the story. I worked on several versions of it, and Ailith's Gift represents the start of what I was planning, though I don't know now if I'll ever continue it.

Fun on-topic fact: Ailith in my story Ailith's Gift is a woman in a fantasy story. Wow!

Ah, but seriously. I honestly think Robin Hobb is the epitome of female characters done right (of what I've read). She is very good at creating varied characters with depth to them, with different types of flaws and strengths that well reflect their background and upbringing without pigeonholing them.


----------



## Philip Overby

I've heard a lot of good things about Robin Hobb over the years.  I have _Assassin's Apprentice _somewhere around here, but only read the first couple of chapters before I got sidetracked.  I liked what I read and I've heard her Farseer and Tawny Man series are worth reading also.


----------



## Steerpike

aelowan said:


> hmm... Nobody's tossed in Tanya Huff, so I will.  Fantastic, strong, funny, and flawed female characters in pretty much everything she writes.  One of my favorites is Vicki Nelson from her Blood books.



I like Huff. I like Staff Sgt. Kerr from her Valor series. Vicki Nelson is good, too.

As for those recommending Robin Hobb, she also wrote a lot of fantasy under the name Megan Lindholm (which I believe is her real name), so you might look for those as well.


----------



## Mindfire

Chilari said:


> Basically, my fiance Matt raged so hard over the ending - he hates it when characters turn into dragons at the end of the story, which is also why he won't play Oblivion any more and why he doesn't like Spirited Away



Why does that bother him so much? Also, has anyone here seen "Legend of Earthsea", the Sci-Fi channel miniseries?


----------



## Zero Angel

Chilari said:


> Have you read the book, Mask? The only bits of the movie that were any good were where they stayed close to the book. When things diverged, it got bad. Towards the end, Sophie is such a wet blanket passive character in the film. In the book she's still proactive. As for the "tough old woman", that's a favouroite trope of Miyazaki's. All his old women are like that. She lacks individuality throughout, with the age thing meaning that in the film, she gets two different personalities - tough old woman and sweet passive heroine, neither of which are unseen in Miyazaki's other movies. In fact I'd go as far as to say he really doesn't create interesting female characters, for how many of them are protagonists in his movies. They're almost none of the proactive except Nausicaa and Kiki, but rather reactive - following where the story takes them, doing what they're told they should do, letting others decide things for them. But even Nausicaa and Kiki are fairly flat, dull characters. There's barely any substance to them. In what way do any of Miyazaki's female main characters - Nausicaa, Kiki, Chihiro, Laputa, Mononoke and so on - actually stand out from one another in characterisation? It's all in their history and their social standing and what happens to them. Their motivations are plot-dictated; without them they are blank canvasses. Take them all from their individual stories and put them all in the same context, and they'd all just stand there waiting for something to happen or someone to explain to them what's going on.



I don't think San in Princess Mononoke is very strong and I don't recall Laputa (maybe I haven't seen that one), but I enjoyed Sophie more in the movie (also enjoyed turnip-head more, although that's off-topic). In the book, she seemed much more defined by her feelings for Howl. The only thing I disliked in the characterization of Sophie in the movie is stripping her of having magic (or at least not explicitly talking about the fact that she has magic). 



Spoiler: Howl's Moving Castle Movie and Book



I also thought the inclusion of war between the two kingdoms instead of just leading up to war was logical and added to the story. It was necessary with removing the witch as the bad guy. I found the end of the book to be anti-climactic.





Mindfire said:


> Why does that bother him so much? Also, has anyone here seen "Legend of Earthsea", the Sci-Fi channel miniseries?


I enjoyed the miniseries, fell asleep during the Studio Ghibli film. If I remember correctly, LeGuin disliked the miniseries for whitewashing the characters.


----------



## Mindfire

Zero Angel said:


> I enjoyed the miniseries, fell asleep during the Studio Ghibli film. If I remember correctly, LeGuin disliked the miniseries for whitewashing the characters.



I was both confused and angered by the whitewashing. But it had more problems than that. It completely mangled the story from the source material, meshing the first two books into a chimeric mess that no longer made any sense. And the special effects were beyond laughable. It was bad even by Sci-Fi standards.


----------



## Chilari

Mindfire said:


> Why does that bother him so much? Also, has anyone here seen "Legend of Earthsea", the Sci-Fi channel miniseries?



I don't know why it bothers him so much. But he really hates it when people turn into dragons. Possibly because it's stupid, perhaps not a satisfying ending, often a sort of "he died, but not really" sort of sacrifice ending - certainly for Oblivion.

As for Howl's Moving Castle, I didn't like the inclusion of the war in the film. I liked that Howl's troubles all stemmed from things he did, and I like the he needed Sophie not only to stop him running from them all the time, but also to help him solve them. I felt the inclusion of the war in the Miyazaki film made it less personal, and frankly stupid. In fact Howl turning into a giant bird monster thing at the end bordered close enough to dragon that it made Matt rage too. I liked the original ending, where everything is happening at once in a big chaotic mess, falling apart and coming together in equal measure. The Wales bit was a bit off the wall, it's true, and perhaps the story could have as well been accomplished with a different setting - like the neighbouring country with which they were going to go to war - but making the black dot door lead to an airship in the middle of the war that Miyazaki basically made up didn't work. The whole second half of the movie was just Miyazaki trying to stamp his story over it and shoehorn another bloody flying contraption into it. He loves his flying contraptions, does Miyazaki.

I enjoyed the stage adaptation immensely. It pared the story back drastically to fit it all in, and made Howl more of a focus than Sophie, and it lacked some of the subtlety in the book, but again, cutting it back so harshly meant it had to. But it kept the core of it - that all of the story was essentially caused by Howl's weaknesses (for women, for the chase, and running away), and that because of those same weaknesses, he couldn't get out of trouble on his own. Also Stephen Fry narrated (in a recording, he wasn't there live unfortunately).


----------



## Steerpike

Chilari said:


> I don't know why it bothers him so much. But he really hates it when people turn into dragons. Possibly because it's stupid, perhaps not a satisfying ending, often a sort of "he died, but not really" sort of sacrifice ending - certainly for Oblivion.



I thought the bit with the dragon in Spirited Away made good sense. I like that film a lot, and Chihiro and Kiki are also my favorites from Miyazaki.


----------



## Ophiucha

Mindfire said:


> I was both confused and angered by the whitewashing. But it had more problems than that. It completely mangled the story from the source material, meshing the first two books into a chimeric mess that no longer made any sense. And the special effects were beyond laughable. It was bad even by Sci-Fi standards.



I felt about the same. I actually like a few things the SyFy network makes (anyone seen _Eureka_? that's science fiction, not fantasy, but it's fantastic - and it has great female characters), but this one was just lazy. Basically boiled the whole story and setting down to its most base elements. And the whitewashing seemed particularly out of place when they didn't even cast particularly good or recognizable actors in the roles. I don't agree with it regardless, but at least when _Iron Man 3_ casts a white guy as the Mandarin, they go with Ben Kingsley. I think Ged was played by the kid who did Iceman in the _X-Men_ films. Not exactly going to get people to set up their DVR.

@Chilari, Stephen Fry, you say? And where might I find this?


----------



## Zero Angel

Mindfire said:


> I was both confused and angered by the whitewashing. But it had more problems than that. It completely mangled the story from the source material, meshing the first two books into a chimeric mess that no longer made any sense. And the special effects were beyond laughable. It was bad even by Sci-Fi standards.



I read it when I was a kid so I didn't realize the characters were a specific ethnicity, and I've already said that I didn't particular care for the story, so the miniseries was A-OK by me on all accounts 



Chilari said:


> I don't know why it bothers him so much. But he really hates it when people turn into dragons. Possibly because it's stupid, perhaps not a satisfying ending, often a sort of "he died, but not really" sort of sacrifice ending - certainly for Oblivion.



Is he like that with dragons that can shapeshift back and forth? Because that's pretty common in the last 20 years or so. The _Dragonlance_ Saga, D&D in general, The Halfblood Chronicles, etc. ...my series -_-

Haven't seen the play.


----------



## Zero Angel

Steerpike said:


> I thought the bit with the dragon in Spirited Away made good sense. I like that film a lot, and Chihiro and Kiki are also my favorites from Miyazaki.



How could I forget Kiki? That's a good bildungsroman for a female character that isn't obsessed with romance for once.


----------



## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> I felt about the same. I actually like a few things the SyFy network makes (anyone seen _Eureka_? that's science fiction, not fantasy, but it's fantastic - and it has great female characters), but this one was just lazy. Basically boiled the whole story and setting down to its most base elements. And the whitewashing seemed particularly out of place when they didn't even cast particularly good or recognizable actors in the roles. I don't agree with it regardless, but at least when _Iron Man 3_ casts a white guy as the Mandarin, they go with Ben Kingsley. I think Ged was played by the kid who did Iceman in the _X-Men_ films. Not exactly going to get people to set up their DVR.
> 
> @Chilari, Stephen Fry, you say? And where might I find this?



The Mandarin thing wasn't so much whitewashing as trying to avoid offending Chinese people. And I think Ben Kingsley is half-Indian, so whether it's _truly_ "white"washing is debatable.


----------



## Subcreator

Mindfire, I looked it up, and you're right. Ben Kingsley's father was a Gujarati Indian who moved to England. He's pretty much the go-to guy for non-English characters: Gandhi, Moses, Pharaoh, and others that I can't remember. Also, I think it is more to avoid offending the Chinese. The idea of the Mandarin is what's called a "Yellow Menace" villain, which is pretty much a stereotype from the 19th and early 20th centuries. (For anyone who doesn't know, look up anti-Chinese sentiment in America, particularly in immigration.)

One problem I see with film adaptations of anything is that whitewashing of the characters, or even just dumbing them down into stereotypes, is really easy. You don't have the time or space to really extend and experience the characters unless you do something like HBO did and make the book into an entire season of a series. Even then, how would you experience the thoughts and back story without voice-overs (which are generally NOT wanted) and flashbacks (which are often spotty at best)?

As such, you end up with "foreign" characters seeming like racial caricatures and gender stereotypes where there had been more well-rounded characters.


----------



## Ophiucha

I don't know, they seem to manage fine with all of the white male characters. I'm white, so I'm not at liberty to say for a character like Ged or the Mandarin, but I'd personally prefer a character is a gross stereotype of a woman than have the character changed to a man or removed from the script. Like, to take a reverse example, the ladies of the _Lord of the Rings_ movies are hardly going to go down as feminist icons (though who doesn't love the "I am no man" line?) and not half as developed as the entirely male main cast, but I'd take that any day over the basically non-present women of the books. Particularly in the older stories, where the choice really _was _either be a stereotype or don't exist. I may not like the way Bram Stoker writes Mina Harker or Lucy, but I love that they are there when compared to, say, _Jekyll and Hyde_ which I think might have had a nameless maid and that's about it.

On the subject of the 1800s and our brother (sister?) genres, Mary Shelley, anyone? Not many female characters in her stories, but she's a very early female SFF writer and her mother - Mary Wollstonecraft - wrote quite an early work on women's rights called _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_, in the late 1700s.


----------



## Chilari

Ophiucha said:


> @Chilari, Stephen Fry, you say? And where might I find this?



It's not on any more. It had a brief run either side of Christmas 2011, in London at the Southwark theatre. Can't remember how I heard about it, but as soon as I did I booked because it's one of my favourite books ever. I really should look out for more stage adaptations of books I've read, they'd be great to review for my website.


----------



## Zero Angel

Subcreator said:


> Mindfire, I looked it up, and you're right. Ben Kingsley's father was a Gujarati Indian who moved to England. He's pretty much the go-to guy for non-English characters: Gandhi, Moses, Pharaoh, and others that I can't remember. Also, I think it is more to avoid offending the Chinese. The idea of the Mandarin is what's called a "Yellow Menace" villain, which is pretty much a stereotype from the 19th and early 20th centuries. (For anyone who doesn't know, look up anti-Chinese sentiment in America, particularly in immigration.)
> 
> One problem I see with film adaptations of anything is that whitewashing of the characters, or even just dumbing them down into stereotypes, is really easy. You don't have the time or space to really extend and experience the characters unless you do something like HBO did and make the book into an entire season of a series. Even then, how would you experience the thoughts and back story without voice-overs (which are generally NOT wanted) and flashbacks (which are often spotty at best)?
> 
> As such, you end up with "foreign" characters seeming like racial caricatures and gender stereotypes where there had been more well-rounded characters.





Mindfire said:


> The Mandarin thing wasn't so much whitewashing as trying to avoid offending Chinese people. And I think Ben Kingsley is half-Indian, so whether it's _truly_ "white"washing is debatable.



So is the upcoming Mandarin in the movies Ben Kingsley playing a Chinese character or a non-Chinese character played by Ben Kingsley?


----------



## Mindfire

Zero Angel said:


> So is the upcoming Mandarin in the movies Ben Kingsley playing a Chinese character or a non-Chinese character played by Ben Kingsley?



A non-Chinese character played by Ben Kingsley. The way they explain it, the "Mandarin" is a terrorist mastermind who collects bits and pieces from cultures he likes all over Asia in order to build up his mystique. He apes the Chinese emperor, the Samurai, Al Qaeda, etc. But he's not really apart of those cultures, he's just stealing from them.


----------



## Philip Overby

Back to women in fantasy, are there any books coming out soon that you're excited about due to women characters involved?  We've talked about current women writers and characters we like, but how about future women characters?  Where do you see women in fantasy going as time progresses?


----------



## Ophiucha

Yeah, the Mandarin in the _comics _is Chinese, but they've rewritten the character to make him not Chinese for the movies, presumably because they cast Ben Kingsley in the role and it would have just been both ridiculous and offensive. Certainly better than giving him the Fu Manchu treatment, though admittedly I think it would have been easier just to keep the character Chinese instead of coming up with the somewhat convoluted backstory they're giving him in the movies.

@Chilari, I wonder if anyone got a camcorder recording or something. Sounds cool...


----------



## Ophiucha

Phil the Drill said:


> Back to women in fantasy, are there any books coming out soon that you're excited about due to women characters involved?  We've talked about current women writers and characters we like, but how about future women characters?  Where do you see women in fantasy going as time progresses?



Hmm, the next book in Scott Lynch's series is coming out this year, I believe. He writes some awesome female characters in the sort of fantastical adventure sense of the word. The black pirate lady from the second one whose name I have forgotten was pretty rad. Can't think of any others off the top of my head... I'm sure a new series/stand alone will come out with something good, but I tend not to hear about those until after they've become popular, not before they're published.


----------



## Philip Overby

I have Scott Lynch's first book, but I had an "accident" with it a while back that makes me kind of not want to read it.  Has nothing to do with the actual content, but the physical book itself.  

That said, I like what I've read of Lynch.  I don't know if I got to any of his female characters yet, but it's good to hear he's doing something along the lines of what some of us mentioned we'd like to see happen with women.


----------



## glutton

CupofJoe said:


> I've tried writing a male MC as the damsel in distress [he looked and sounded like a Hero but needed someone to keep him safe most of the time] but I found it difficult in the world I was using to have a strong female MC [as a counterbalance for him] that would be take seriously by other men and women in the story. I couldn't escape the narrativium that the [DiD] man would be followed because he was the man. There as only so many times you can write variations "Ah, XX was were right" or "If only we'd listened to XX..." before it grates...



I'd probably solve this problem by making the female MC obviously so 'much' that anyone, whether a woman or a man or the strongest man in the world, _has_ to take her seriously. Although, that's my thing.


----------



## glutton

Also, relating to the argument about physical abilities a few pages back, my fictional worlds don't follow the same rules as our reality. The average woman is still weaker than the average man because they're not likely to be as physical active, but the female great warriors are 85-100% as strong as the _strongest_ men despite being smaller. I guess their super-estrogen is at least as powerful (arguably moreso since they do so much with less size) as testosterone. A scene I loved which I recently wrote was of a mean, scary princess who talks down to the female MC of that story... hurling a boulder at a dragon.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Something I found in a recent io9 post, which may prove both relevant and amusing.


----------



## Mindfire

I'm curious. Does anyone here see anything contradictory or otherwise problematic about a culture that:

Assigns war, animal husbandry, music, and aesthetic gardening as traditionally masculine
Assigns agriculture, oral tradition, and home defense as traditionally feminine
Assigns craftsmanship as gender neutral
Has a wedding custom in which husband and wife face off in ritual combat to decide who will be the head of household

The rationale behind these assignments is that while this culture considers parenthood a shared responsibility, the bond between mother and child is seen as especially special and sacred. In order not to interfere with that, women take tasks that keep them closer to home, leaving things that may require traveling away from home for extended periods (war, herding) as male activities. The culture has spiritual reasons for art &c. being traditionally masculine. Haven't quite worked them out yet. (Maybe it's to help men better understand the mysterious mother-child connection by using their creativity?) The actual reason is that I thought it would be amusing to have a barbarian culture in which brawny warrior men are expected to spend a great deal of time looking after flowers and small shrubs.  The idea for this culture is a work in progress. I'm still ironing out the wrinkles.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Edit: Oops, I think I misunderstood what you meant by "problematic". (I thought you were talking about offense, not believability. I was going to argue that the former isn't relevant in this context, since you're portraying rather than advocating. I don't see any obvious problem in terms of the latter, but I'm no anthropologist.)


----------



## Nihal

The huns and incas soldiers took their families with them when encamping. Also, don't forget that wars aren't fought only "far away from home". What does happen when the war is brought near to where they live? Who will protect the families? If it's a equalist society I can see these women in the role of homeland protectors, watchers and such.


----------



## glutton

Nihal said:


> The huns and incas soldiers took their families with them when encamping. Also, don't forget that wars aren't fought only "far away from home". What does happen when the war is brought near to where they live? Who will protect the families? If it's a equalist society I can see these women in the role of homeland protectors, watchers and such.



I think Mindfire said in his proposed culture home defense is considered traditionally feminine.


----------



## Nihal

Ops, ended focusing on the "close to family" aspect. He only needs to make it believable. Don't only say "they protect their homes", like some authors do with their heroines saying "she's badass" and making them damsel-in-distress instead. (Not saying you do this, Mindfire!)

Don't let this aspect sink too far in the story, remind the readers that they're fighters too, and the duels are going to be more believable.

Anyway, I wonder how the males see the women staying behind. It's an aspect that could lead to prejudice, E.G. "I was away fighting in wars and now you want to control our home?".


----------



## glutton

Nihal said:


> like some authors do with their heroines saying "she's badass" and making them damsel-in-distress instead.



I wonder if I could come off this way with some of my warrior male leads lol... granted those men are the 2nd/3rd best warriors in their entire kingdom but still noticeably a step behind the female MCs in their books.


----------



## Mindfire

Nihal said:


> Ops, ended focusing on the "close to family" aspect. He only needs to make it believable. Don't only say "they protect their homes", like some authors do with their heroines saying "she's badass" and making them damsel-in-distress instead. (Not saying you do this, Mindfire!)
> 
> Don't let this aspect sink too far in the story, remind the readers that they're fighters too, and the duels are going to be more believable.
> 
> Anyway, I wonder how the males see the women staying behind. It's an aspect that could lead to prejudice, E.G. "I was away fighting in wars and now you want to control our home?".



If the husband or wife does not feel they are getting a fair shake, they may challenge their spouse to another duel to sort of sue for leadership. However, there is more at stake. There is no shame in losing the first duel, but if the challenger loses the second duel it is considered a shame, as this culture believes it is disgraceful to make empty threats and boasts. 

Also note that women are as likely as men to win these ritual duels. The men are (on average but not always) bigger and stronger than women, but women are trained to be faster and far more aggressive to balance this difference.


----------



## glutton

Mindfire said:


> but women are trained to be faster and far more aggressive to balance this difference.



It doesn't seem very realistic that the women are trained to be 'far more' aggressive if the men have to go to war, I would expect both to be trained to be as aggressive as they need to be unless the men off at war are meant to be subpar warriors.

Also women aren't naturally faster than men IRL (although the rules could be different in your fantasy setting like they are in mine).


----------



## Anders Ã„mting

Mindfire said:


> I'm curious. Does anyone here see anything contradictory or otherwise problematic about a culture that:
> 
> -Assigns war, animal husbandry, music, and aesthetic gardening as traditionally masculine
> -Assigns agriculture, oral tradition, and home defense as traditionally feminine



It seems to me that music and oral tradition should have some overlap: songs are oral tradition, after all. Thus, I'd find it a bit odd if one gender was in charge of stories and poetry while the other is in charge of music and song. Those are traditions that would probably have evolved from the same source.



> -Has a wedding custom in which husband and wife face off in ritual combat to decide who will be the head of household



I dunno... isn't that basically to promote violent conflicts as a way to solve relationship and gender issues? Seems like a good way to get a culture of spousal abuse on your hands. 

It also seems to imply that a marriage is inherently about domination: That one part of the married couple always has to have authority over the other.

Anyway, what does being "the head of the household" actually mean? They already have pretty specific gender roles: Women handle agriculture, men handle gardening, etc. If both parts of the couple have very specific duties, what does it mean to be the "head" and why is being the head apparently totally interchangeable depending on who is the best asskicker? 



> The actual reason is that I thought it would be amusing to have a barbarian culture in which brawny warrior men are expected to spend a great deal of time looking after flowers and small shrubs.



I think you would end up with a very "cultured" bunch of barbarians by necessity - you've basically set them up to be warrior-poets who spends their off-time gardening. I would expect them to be very introspective and artistic, which is going to reflect on their martial philosophy and attitude a lot. More samurai than viking, basically.  (In fact, samurai were traditionally required to be proficient in both poetry and floral arrangement.) 

Otherwise, you seem to have left out religion and economics, and those are kinda important things when it comes to determining who is really on top in a society. Basically, who talks to the gods, and who handles the money?


----------



## Mindfire

glutton said:


> It doesn't seem very realistic that the women are trained to be 'far more' aggressive if the men have to go to war, I would expect both to be trained to be as aggressive as they need to be unless the men off at war are meant to be subpar warriors.
> 
> Also women aren't naturally faster than men IRL (although the rules could be different in your fantasy setting like they are in mine).



Have you ever witnessed the wrath of a mother bear? IMO, it makes perfect sense for women to be trained to be more aggressive. Think about it. If the men are far afield, that means the women at home are the last line of defense between the enemy and everything that matters. Also, I've learned from experience that the smaller fighter has to be faster and more aggressive to take on a bigger opponent, just on general principles. It's not that the men are trained to be substandard so much as the females are trained to compensate for their size if necessary.


----------



## glutton

The way you say women are trained to be 'more aggressive' implies that the men are trained to be 'less aggressive' than them to the point of it being a disadvantage against them - how is that not giving the men who are supposed to go to war suboptimal training?

Also, men are naturally faster than women although you could change this for your setting, but you should probably make that clear somehow.


----------



## Mindfire

Anders Ã„mting said:


> It seems to me that music and oral tradition should have some overlap: songs are oral tradition, after all. Thus, I'd find it a bit odd if one gender was in charge of stories and poetry while the other is in charge of music and song. Those are traditions that would probably have evolved from the same source.



I hadn't thought of that. I think I'll shift them both to the neutral category. 



Anders Ã„mting said:


> I dunno... isn't that basically to promote violent conflicts as a way to solve relationship and gender issues? Seems like a good way to get a culture of spousal abuse on your hands.



I think this culture's somewhat unusual system of honor might prevent that. In this culture, slavery is considered dishonorable because needing chains in order to keep your servants under control is a sign of weakness. Likewise abusers would be stigmatized as weak and insecure because they need to constantly beat their subordinates to remind them who's in charge. Note that being a subordinate is NOT stigmatized or considered dishonorable in this culture. 



Anders Ã„mting said:


> It also seems to imply that a marriage is inherently about domination: That one part of the married couple always has to have authority over the other.



It does, but they see nothing wrong with that, so long as the dominating party has proven their worth. 



Anders Ã„mting said:


> Anyway, what does being "the head of the household" actually mean? They already have pretty specific gender roles: Women handle agriculture, men handle gardening, etc. If both parts of the couple have very specific duties, what does it mean to be the "head" and why is being the head apparently totally interchangeable depending on who is the best asskicker?



I'm thinking that "head" means "administrator" or "boss", the person who gets the final say on everything. Also: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AsskickingEqualsAuthority



Anders Ã„mting said:


> I think you would end up with a very "cultured" bunch of barbarians by necessity - you've basically set them up to be warrior-poets who spends their off-time gardening. I would expect them to be very introspective and artistic, which is going to reflect on their martial philosophy and attitude a lot. More samurai than viking, basically.  (In fact, samurai were traditionally required to be proficient in both poetry and floral arrangement.)



That might actually work. Originally this culture wasn't very fleshed out and looked too much like the Dothrakis for my liking. Something like that would make them more unique and I don't really have any other warrior-poet cultures. 



Anders Ã„mting said:


> Otherwise, you seem to have left out religion and economics, and those are kinda important things when it comes to determining who is really on top in a society. Basically, who talks to the gods, and who handles the money?



I've got religion mostly sorted. Just need to formalize it. This culture will not have priests or an organized religion per se, more like a loose collection of gods, ancestors, and tribal spirits with shrines and monuments. I may draw on Polynesian influence for that. They may have shamans, but I'm not sure how they would be chosen yet. As for economics, I honestly hadn't thought about that. I considered making them communist, but that seems to clash with the rest of their culture. Perhaps the dominant spouse also takes care of the money?


----------



## Nihal

glutton said:


> Also, men are naturally faster than women although you could change this for your setting, but you should probably make that clear somehow.



Really? You're in danger of falling in the same stereotypical line of thought someone has fallen earlier in this topic. Just... don't.


----------



## Kit

Mindfire said:


> They may have shamans, but I'm not sure how they would be chosen yet.



Real shamans (which show up in cultures all over the world) are usually "called" to their duty by dreams or other spiritual experiences.


----------



## glutton

Nihal said:


> Really? You're in danger of falling in the same stereotypical line of thought someone has fallen earlier in this topic. Just... don't.



Factual info=stereotype? In our world men are on average faster - testosterone enhances explosiveness. Of course an individual woman could be faster or stronger than an average man or even most men, but if we're talking a whole society, biology would likely have to be different in that world to support no advantage for active men on average. I mean we aren't discussing _a_ woman being fast or strong, we're discussing women in general being faster than men.

A way to make men and women more equal in combat on average without changing biological trends might be to have that culture on a whole favor weapons that rely less on strength.


----------



## Nihal

That men are better fighters than women because they're men is a stereotype, yes.

I could argue that it's an actual fact that women have an increased peripheral vision compared to men. Therefore, they would be harder to flank. Therefore, they would also be able to specifically flank men easily. Women are said to be able to process more information at the same time. So, they would be able to flank men dazed by the battle who can only see forward. See?

Those said facts don't give automatic win to anyone.

Here you are disregarding completely training, situation and specialization. You're also overlooking individual differences. Battle isn't only about who is stronger. And saying you changed the rules of your world so women can stand a chance vs the "faster and stronger" men sounds condescending, at best.

P.s.: You're also seem to be confusing adrenaline with testosterone.


----------



## Mindfire

glutton said:


> The way you say women are trained to be 'more aggressive' implies that the men are trained to be 'less aggressive' than them to the point of it being a disadvantage against them - how is that not giving the men who are supposed to go to war suboptimal training?



You're... not quite getting what I'm saying. Perhaps Kit can explain? Each child is trained from toddler-cy to maximize their combat potential by taking advantage of their physique's natural strengths. Naturally fast people are trained to rely on speed and agility, strong people are trained to rely on strength, etc. Since on average, women are smaller than men it logically follows that they will be trained on average to be faster and more aggressive.



glutton said:


> Also, men are naturally faster than women although you could change this for your setting, but you should probably make that clear somehow.


This is a fantasy universe in which people can transform into cats, create fire with their minds, use their swords to channel lightning bolts, and summon eldritch demons to consume their enemies at the cost of their own sanity. Real world biology matters only inasmuch as I say it does.


----------



## glutton

Nihal said:


> That men are better fighters than women because they're men is a stereotype, yes.
> 
> I could argue that it's an actual fact that women have an increased peripheral vision compared to men. Therefore, they would be harder to flank. Therefore, they would also be able to specifically flank men easily. Women are said to be able to process more information at the same time. So, they would be able to flank men dazed by the battle who can only see forward. See?
> 
> Those said facts don't give automatic win to anyone.
> 
> Here you are disregarding completely training, situation and specialization. You're also overlooking individual differences. Battle isn't only about who is stronger. And saying you changed the rules of your world so women can stand a chance vs the "faster and stronger" men sounds condescending, at best.



The discussion was about one on one combat and Mindfire's proposition of women being faster than men in general...

I didn't change the rules so the women could stand a chance against the stronger and faster men, I changed them so they could be as physically strong as and perform equal feats of monster strength as the strongest men in their world, who are also stronger than any real man could be and chuck around boulders and such. Of course a woman could kill any real man with a weapon or even without one if they could hit them in the right spot, like biting out their throat or something. What you're criticizing is the 'flavor' of my work which emphasizes impossible feats of strength and toughness.

I didn't just want my 'strong' heroines to be able to beat men, but to be on the same physical level as 7' 400 male mountains of muscle and clash with them toe to toe, lock arms with them, trade dozens of punches with them, etc. I think that does require some changing of rules.


----------



## glutton

Mindfire said:


> This is a fantasy universe in which people can transform into cats, create fire with their minds, use their swords to channel lightning bolts, and summon eldritch demons to consume their enemies at the cost of their own sanity. Real world biology matters only inasmuch as I say it does.



Then that's fine, I was just checking if you were aware of the facts of our universe.

With regard to the aggressiveness I thought you meant 'more ruthless', if you just mean they take advantage of their speed more by constantly attacking and not letting up that's fine too.


----------



## Zero Angel

Nihal said:


> That men are better fighters than women because they're men is a stereotype, yes.
> 
> I could argue that it's an actual fact that women have an increased peripheral vision compared to men. Therefore, they would be harder to flank. Therefore, they would also be able to specifically flank men easily. Women are said to be able to process more information at the same time. So, they would be able to flank men dazed by the battle who can only see forward. See?
> 
> Those said facts don't give automatic win to anyone.
> 
> Here you are disregarding completely training, situation and specialization. You're also overlooking individual differences. Battle isn't only about who is stronger. And saying you changed the rules of your world so women can stand a chance vs the "faster and stronger" men sounds condescending, at best.
> 
> P.s.: You're also seem to be confusing adrenaline with testosterone.



Nihal, I don't think he said that men were better fighters on average (if so, maybe I missed it), but he said basically what you said in regards to peripheral vision. Studies have been done that show that women on average have better peripheral vision and multitasking ability and similar studies have been done that show that men are on average larger and stronger than women. The danger is saying that means one or the other wins automatically on average, but again, unless I've missed it, I don't think he's said that. Also, there is the concern that the reason these studies show these things is because of societal causes and upbringing as opposed to biology. 

I am fairly certain that it is a scientific fact that there is a positive correlation between testosterone and muscle mass, which is one reason why body builders take testosterone. And that there is a positive correlation between possessing a Y chromosome and the body's generation of testosterone. So, at least based on science (which is never THAT trustworthy, especially when it comes to basing stuff off statistics), one can argue that men are on average stronger than women. 

Which I believe was his point. 

Although I also believe that there are a few issues with semantics. Namely, "faster". When Mindfire is describing his women as being faster fighters, I'm thinking of quickness. I.e. rapid attacks. When glutton is speaking of "faster", I picture a bull charging or a lineman in American football jumping off the line of scrimmage. I don't think that testosterone causes explosiveness, but the aforementioned muscle mass can help with that. 

Still, as someone that fights with mock medieval weapons regularly, I'd rather fight an explosive fighter than a fast fighter. Explosive fighters you just have to direct/shunt off the explosion, whereas fast fighters are in and out and unless you are able to overwhelm them, they're going to be hitting you regularly. If they're hitting you with a knife or a sword like that, then you're dead.


----------



## Nihal

@Zero Angel

This kind of sentence makes me believe he needs to better phrase a lot more than one or two affirmations.



glutton said:


> Then that's fine, I was just checking if you were aware of the facts of our universe.



It also gives the feeling that, sorry about the wording, he's trying to shove _his facts_ down our throats. What leads to the conclusion that it's useless to debate anything. He's also taking it as an attack against his work. It wasn't even on discussion.

So... whatever.


----------



## glutton

Based on Nihal's reaction, it seems like I once again have failed to explain my setting properly and not gotten across what I'm going for in it. Maybe I should try again.

In the setting of my main series, there is a woman who wields an axe that can cleave a horse in half in one swing and survives having a spear shoved almost all the way through her _horizontally from flank to flank_. She can still move and defeats the guy who I'll mention next after this happens.

There is also a man who survives having the aforementioned woman cleave deeply into his side with said giant axe, falls into water in his armor after being so injured, and manages to swim to safety. He also jumps off the wall of a fort 30 feet up, rolls immediately to his feet after landing on the ground and runs away like nothing happened.

There is another woman who can crush a man's skull just by palming his head and squeezing with her fingers, and takes a running soccer style kick directly to the face from a King Kong-sized monster, but gets back up later and keeps fighting.

There is a man who is stronger than the above woman, who falls hundreds of feet and isn't even knocked out, but only breaks his arm, and another time falls 80 feet onto a paved surface and pops right back up annoyed.

There is another man who swings around two giant axes much faster than crossbow bolts fly, and can kill 1000 men in a single day.

None of the above has any magic enhancing their physical attributes, which just are that way because they are at or near the pinnacle of human ability in their world. The heroine is not any of the above mentioned. She is first among peers in that group (some of whom are heroes and others villains), as strong as any of them, not as fast as the giant axe guy but fast enough to deflect a crossbow bolt from point blank without seeing it fired, and _more_ durable than any of them. She can run through stone melting dragon breath, survive numerous impalements including through the heart with a giant sword, resist extended electrocution while still continuing to fight, tank enough poison to kill multiple elephants, and so on. She has thrown a man as tall as Gregor the Mountain, but as wide as Andre the Giant, wearing 200 pound armor, over her head like a doll, beaten a giant bear to death with her bare hands, ripped the leg off a 9 foot tall divinely powered champion of a god, killed 500 ogres and dozens of larger monsters in one battle, and slew a 100 ton dragon at age 17 alone and with just her nonmagical sword. Hopefully this gives Nihal a better sense of what I'm going for and why the rules are different. Now back on topic?


----------



## glutton

Nihal said:


> He's also taking it as an attack against his work. It wasn't even on discussion.



You're actually the one who brought my work into the discussion of Mindfire's idea with the sentence 'And saying you changed the rules of your world so women can stand a chance vs the "faster and stronger" men sounds condescending, at best.'

Also, why are you offended by the use of the word 'facts' in reference to things that, as far as we know, are facts?


----------



## Jabrosky

For one of my fantasy projects I have designed a society which turns our idea of traditional gender roles on its head. In this society, women are nomadic huntresses whereas men are sedentary farmers. A brief explanation of how this society works is on my DeviantArt page:



> *The Vandu People*
> 
> Few societies have gender roles as sharply delineated and deterministic as the Vandu people, for the men and women live almost completely separate lives. However, Terran observers show the most surprise not at the extreme division between man and woman, but over which roles they are assigned. To Terran sensibilities, Vandu gender roles appear topsy-turvy, a total reversion of expectation. To sum them up as briefly as possible, women hunt and men gather.
> 
> "Vandu" as an ethnonym translates to "human being", but its definition is conventionally based on language. Per this definition, anyone who speaks some dialect of isiVandu as their native tongue qualifies as an ethnic Vandu. However, since the Vandu people have spread across a vast area with contrasting terrains over the centuries, ranging from dry plains to steamy rainforests, isiVandu's dialects are many and do not always sound intelligible to one another. Given this variation, the description of Vandu culture in this article must be interpreted as a set of loose generalizations and may not apply to every Vandu subgroup.
> 
> By and large the Vandu have very dark skin as an adaptation to the flaming tropical sun. Those living in open savanna and semiarid regions tend to be even darker than those who have settled in the shadowy rainforest regions. Their tall and lean figures, with elongated limb proportions, help dissipate heat in their sweltering homeland. Vandu people, especially the women, tend to store what little body fat they do have over their rear ends; rigorously developed hind muscles accentuate this steatopygia.
> 
> The fundamental division in Vandu society is between men and women as said earlier. Women roam and hunt in nomadic family groups for most of the year while men reside in permanent villages and grow crops. Periodically a female band will visit a male village for commerce and of course reproduction, but even then bands will cycle between multiple villages rather than sticking near one. Some bands do not even stay within one region and instead travel across the whole continent. Permanent and monogamous couples do not exist among the Vandu.
> 
> In their early years, Vandu boys and girls both travel in the bands with their mothers and other female kin, but once they approach adolescence the boys must leave their mothers' bands and join the nearest male village. There the men already living there will teach the newcomers how to farm and guard their crops, forge iron tools, weave clothing, and other village duties. Meanwhile, the girls receive from their elders rigorous training to mature them into huntresses. This period of education concludes with a rite of passage called the First Hunt, in which a girl must hunt and kill a certain dangerous animal all by herself to graduate into full womanhood.
> 
> Both Vandu female bands and male villages have social hierarchies which privilege elders as spiritual and political leaders who work in council. In general Vandu elders and more experienced individuals regardless of gender have prestige and authority over youth and inexperienced, but relations within the same age-set and experience level tend towards egalitarianism.


----------



## Ireth

I like your ideas for the Vandu, Jabroksy. They kinda remind me of lions. ^^


----------



## Jabrosky

Ireth said:


> I like your ideas for the Vandu, Jabroksy. They kinda remind me of lions. ^^


In my experience, wild animal behavior can definitely provide ideas for how fantastical human societies might function. I think world-builders in need of inspiration might want to consider looking into animal behavior.


----------



## Nebuchadnezzar

> In my experience, wild animal behavior can definitely provide ideas for how fantastical human societies might function. I think world-builders in need of inspiration might want to consider looking into animal behavior.



Definitely.  As I recall, the old Traveller RPG developed at least two alien races by essentially imagining how a society might behave if modeled after animal behavior (the Aslan were based on lions and the Vargr were based on wolves).  I think there might have been a third that was developed by imagining what it might be like if cows developed sentience but the name escapes me (needless to say, they were extremely hostile to meat eaters...)

I think the Han race from CJ Cherry's Pride of Chanur series were also based on lions.  Cherryh played up the significantly different gender roles vs humans, as did Traveller's Aslan.


----------



## Zero Angel

Nihal said:


> @Zero Angel
> 
> This kind of sentence makes me believe he needs to better phrase a lot more than one or two affirmations.
> 
> 
> 
> It also gives the feeling that, sorry about the wording, he's trying to shove _his facts_ down our throats. What leads to the conclusion that it's useless to debate anything. He's also taking it as an attack against his work. It wasn't even on discussion.
> 
> So... whatever.



Yeah, that was pretty crazy. I'm the guy that's getting cut off in traffic saying, "Well maybe they're having a baby and have to get to the hospital on time," when in reality that's rarely the case. 

The "facts of the universe" line was a bit much. It sounds much more over-the-top than saying something like, "Just wanted to clarify if your humans were as we'd expect from Earth or if there's something inherently different."

@glutton: We've talked about this a couple times in the thread already, but the general consensus seems to have been that having female fighters in a work does not make it "equal" in regards to gender issues. Although ostensibly it sounds as though your female characters are rather BA, being physically equal/superior is only one thing to consider in the pantheon of gender issues. Still, I think the larger objection is not to your work, but rather to what you are presently saying/assuming about females on our planet, Earth. 

How much of the "averages" are based on choice or conditioning is not fully understood, so we really can't say that human males would be stronger than human females if, for instance, the society was matriarchal over time instead of patriarchal. Earlier in the thread (or one like it), there was a male member criticizing his black belt female sister, saying that (and I'm paraphrasing) no matter how much she trained he would still be able to beat her, to which almost universally everyone took offense to. This is, I believe, what Nihal was cautioning you against initially.


----------



## glutton

The 'fact of our universe' part was meant to sound witty.

As for the physical differences it's hard to argue against the fact that _men_ gain physical power when given more testosterone than they naturally produce (as do women, who not only become stronger with increased testosterone, but change to look more like men). Men being generally larger than women doesn't seem like it would be a produce of nurture as opposed to nature either, given what we see with regard to sexual dimorphism in animals.

I would say that generally speaking the worlds I write in tend to be more patriarchal than not, but in a setting where might makes right, having the potential to be the greatest champion in battle regardless of gender is pretty valuable...


----------



## Zero Angel

glutton said:


> The 'fact of our universe' part was meant to sound witty.
> 
> As for the physical differences it's hard to argue against the fact that _men_ gain physical power when given more testosterone than they naturally produce (as do women, who not only become stronger with increased testosterone, but change to look more like men). Men being generally larger than women doesn't seem like it would be a produce of nurture as opposed to nature either, given what we see with regard to sexual dimorphism in animals.
> 
> I would say that generally speaking the worlds I write in tend to be more patriarchal than not, but in a setting where might makes right, having the potential to be the greatest champion in battle regardless of gender is pretty valuable...



Speaking scientifically, my point was that although there is a correlation between testosterone and muscle mass, it is not 100% set in stone all the causes of your body producing testosterone. There's a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg situation in which it is possible that building muscle mass could increase testosterone on its own, whereas we normally associate people with high testosterone with muscle mass. 

In terms of fighting, especially with weapons, muscle mass is not nearly as important as skill.


----------



## glutton

Zero Angel said:


> Speaking scientifically, my point was that although there is a correlation between testosterone and muscle mass, it is not 100% set in stone all the causes of your body producing testosterone. There's a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg situation in which it is possible that building muscle mass could increase testosterone on its own, whereas we normally associate people with high testosterone with muscle mass.
> 
> In terms of fighting, especially with weapons, muscle mass is not nearly as important as skill.



But when a man _or_ woman is given more testosterone, it's physically beneficial at least in the short term. There's been a lot of controversy in MMA as of late about male competitors using testosterone replacement therapy (having their testosterone boosted artificially to 'make up' for decreasing testosterone production due to age etc.) and whether it's fair.

I never said anything about the importance of muscle mass with regard to any specific type of fighting, I just made a comment about physical trends based on observable phenomenon and was 'warned' about it. If the comment about skill vs muscle mass was in reference to my point about my female characters' potential based on their strength, well all the 'elites' in my work have insanely high skill by definition, but if the females didn't have such comparable physical stats, they'd likely be underdogs against guys who are as skilled as them but physically superior.


----------



## saellys

Ophiucha said:


> Hmm, the next book in Scott Lynch's series is coming out this year, I believe. He writes some awesome female characters in the sort of fantastical adventure sense of the word. The black pirate lady from the second one whose name I have forgotten was pretty rad. Can't think of any others off the top of my head... I'm sure a new series/stand alone will come out with something good, but I tend not to hear about those until after they've become popular, not before they're published.



Lynch's female characters tend to end up as dupes, corpses, or Manic Pixie Dream Girls. I'm cautiously optimistic about finally meeting Sabetha in _The Republic of Thieves_, but I'm bummed about Lynch's track record thus far.

EDIT: I just want to take a moment to congratulate everyone on making it to 42 pages without a lock!


----------



## Riellfhe

In response to Chilari's original post on the tenth of march: I actually have a very good example of a male character desperately trying to attain the skill level of a female character: Riell, a female half angel and Shrazz a male half demon. Both are characters from Sherrod Wall's From Heaven to Earth. The two of them have different fighting styles and different methods of conducting themselves based on their races unique needs and their personalities in general. Riell makes it a point to reference Shrazz's irresponsibility and why she was the sole reason he was able to develop past adolescence and mature into a skilled fighter. In turn, Shrazz is constantly amazed by Riell, whose presence on the battlefield stirs feelings of endearment within Shrazz: even when she fights him as she would a sworn enemy. Their romance is one of many reasons I am so obsessed with From Heaven to Earth. Take care all!


----------



## glutton

Riellfhe said:


> In response to Chilari's original post on the tenth of march: I actually have a very good example of a male character desperately trying to attain the skill level of a female character: Riell, a female half angel and Shrazz a male half demon. Both are characters from Sherrod Wall's From Heaven to Earth. The two of them have different fighting styles and different methods of conducting themselves based on their races unique needs and their personalities in general. Riell makes it a point to reference Shrazz's irresponsibility and why she was the sole reason he was able to develop past adolescence and mature into a skilled fighter. In turn, Shrazz is constantly amazed by Riell, whose presence on the battlefield stirs feelings of endearment within Shrazz: even when she fights him as she would a sworn enemy. Their romance is one of many reasons I am so obsessed with From Heaven to Earth. Take care all!



I'm not sure that qualifies as trying to catch up to a female character in a traditionally feminine pursuit though, although the maturity theme - I assume you mean responsibility and not irresponsibility - is cool.


----------



## saellys

This article is multifaceted enough to warrant a thread of its own, but I didn't feel like starting one and then rehashing the same things we've been posting about for forty-two pages, so I'll just resurrect this thread to link it. 

"'We Have Always Fought': Challenging the 'Women, Cattle, and Slaves' Narrative," by Kameron Hurley


----------



## Feo Takahari

saellys said:


> This article is multifaceted enough to warrant a thread of its own, but I didn't feel like starting one and then rehashing the same things we've been posting about for forty-two pages, so I'll just resurrect this thread to link it.
> 
> "'We Have Always Fought': Challenging the 'Women, Cattle, and Slaves' Narrative," by Kameron Hurley



I read most of it, but she was going on and on and making the same points that have already been made in this thread. I don't think the narrative is that monolithic or that inescapable.

My current project is set in a world without sexism. The characters never comment on gender, they never treat each other differently based on gender*, and gender doesn't bar anyone from a role or a job. It's not that hard to write--all you have to do is _not_ import the elements associated with "sexism" to your world, just as you would leave out fire-breathing reptiles to avoid "dragons."** It's incredibly liberating to just talk about what I want to talk about without throwing in token "historically accurate" sexism for a setting that isn't even historical. (I'm not the only author I've seen do this, either.)

*There's no romance, so that matter doesn't come up.

**Okay, there's a bit of modification involved. When I realized I had three male parental figures and no female ones, I decided to change one's sex. But that just needs a bit of self-awareness. If you're not currently making all your female characters victims or love interests, you're probably capable of pulling this off.


----------



## Mindfire

At the risk of igniting a flamewar, I'd like to express a relevant thought that has just occurred to me. 

I think the bulk of resistance to more/better female characters and stories centered on them is rooted in, not hatred or even dislike of women necessarily, but rather the fear that (in slippery-slope fashion) stories featuring them will eventually eclipse or even erase stories made "for us." As if a proliferation of Kim Possibles will somehow drive Batman and his ilk into extinction. This came to me as a result of introspection actually. In my younger days I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Kim Possible. I loved the show, but I hated the fact that aside from Wade and the Twins, pretty much all the men on the show were idiots, even those who were supposedly top tier superheroes or secret agents. In the world of Kim Possible, either you're a woman or you're an idiot. Now from this experience I could have empathized with women who find themselves inadequately portrayed in male-dominated entertainment. BUT INSTEAD, I came to the conclusion that if women got their way, all shows would be like Kim Possible.* In order for entertainment for them to get made, the stuff I liked would have to go away. Because it's a zero-sum game, you see. Men and women are fighting each other for dominance and "There can be only one." Now this idea is kind of a dumb idea, but I think many men might have internalized this idea without realizing it. Boys vs. Girls is a very popular motif, and girls are often shown as winning, perhaps as a token gesture to placate feminists. (Or at least that's how it seemed in my childhood. I was like, "Geez, can the guys get some wins once in a while?") But in reality I think this does nothing except to instill varying degrees of resentment toward women. When viewed from this perspective, the resistance to female representation makes sense. If there are only two sides, mine and yours, and only one can win, of course I'm going to support my side. And whenever female characters do break through, they're often depicted as having risen to the top by climbing up a mountain of male corpses, whether literally or metaphorically. Needless to say, this doesn't help matters. Conclusion: if there's going to be any headway made, more gun-toting women won't necessarily do the trick. You have to address the zero-sum game way of thinking.


I await my inevitable crucifixion. The nails are over there in the corner.


----------



## Devor

Mindfire said:


> I think the bulk of resistance to more/better female characters and stories centered on them is rooted in, not hatred or even dislike of women necessarily, but rather the fear that (in slippery-slope fashion) stories featuring them will eventually eclipse or even erase stories made "for us."



To put it in simpler terms, you're afraid that characters like Batgirl are going to begin overpowering your favorite stories, like Batman, and twist them up into something you're not as interested in?  I could kind of see that happening for some stories. I think it did happen for some. But with men/women, I think we're past that point with everything but maybe DC and Marvel, which have a lot of legacy characters.  Nowadays these are all things that are considered from the inception of a story, most of the time.

I don't really know how much it drives the conversation.

And if you think it's between Batman and Kim Possibles (which I have no idea what that is), two more words:  Aang, and Korra.


----------



## Mindfire

Devor said:


> To put it in simpler terms, you're afraid that characters like Batgirl are going to begin overpowering your favorite stories, like Batman, and twist them up into something you're not as interested in?



Well not now, obviously. I was at one point. Like ten years ago. What I mean is that whenever there's a huge fanboy backlash against feminist ideas (see the totally beyond the pale hate that Anita Sarkeesian has gotten/continues to get) I think it's rooted in this "us vs. them" mindset.



Devor said:


> I could kind of see that happening for some stories. I think it did happen for some. But with men/women, I think we're past that point with everything but maybe DC and Marvel, which have a lot of legacy characters.  Nowadays these are all things that are considered from the inception of a story, most of the time.
> 
> I don't really know how much it drives the conversation.
> 
> And if you think it's between Batman and Kim Possibles (which I have no idea what that is), two more words:  Aang, and Korra.



Wait... you've never heard of Kim Possible? She was really popular in the early 2000s and pretty much _the_ poster girl for "girl power!" The show was good, but like I said, I had a few issues with it.



Spoiler: Kim Possible show intro, spoiler'd to save space











The Avatar series is pretty incomparable as far as kids cartoons goes. Both series are nearly flawless, and the writers know how to make their female characters worthwhile without making the male characters idiots. I love them for that. On the contrary, if you look at just about every _other_ show that has "girl power!" as one of its key themes or just focuses on a female character, you'll note that the guys tend to be remarkably lame or downright stupid. I'm not making this out to be cause and effect, but there's a pattern here is what I'm getting at. I think the resistance to more female characters comes from the unfounded belief that women are out to "take over" rather than just be adequately represented. Or to frame it from a child's perspective, all the girls want is a chance to play and the guys are convinced they want to steal all the toys and break them. And most dialogues regarding the issue fail to even address this idea. For those on the male side of the dialogue the "us vs. them" narrative is something of an unspoken truth that is never to be challenged. And from the feminist point of view (as near as I can tell) the prevailing attitude is that to even suggest that the issue ISN'T a zero sum game where one shall rise, one shall fall somehow amounts to over-apologetic boot-lickery, molly-coddling, and kissing up to the misogynist pigs, and of course they want none of that. So what we're stuck with is two sides engaged in a cold war with occasional bursts of open hostility.


----------



## Zero Angel

So basically, Mindfire, since we've pushed so much one way, you're afraid of it snapping back and going too far the other way. It would be nice to find some middle ground, and if you look at rational people making art nowadays, I think there are many succeeding. 

I never noticed that in Kim Possible until you just now mentioned it, but Wade was a pretty main character, wasn't he? How many cool guys do you need in the show? Were there bad girls too though? (I really can't remember it. It's been years and I wouldn't describe myself as a fan, just someone that watched it occasionally).


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## Ophiucha

I agree with you, Mindfire, in that I have seen that mindset elsewhere. Perhaps - as a woman - I find it hard to understand that particular example, but to take another form of minority, I have seen people say exactly what you just said about white/non-white characters. When I was younger, I got into a debate with a girl over on Gaia Online (yeah, I know) about whether or not Hermione could/should have been black - and I definitely felt like "wow, no, you can't take Hermione from me!" even though, logically, there are like thousands of characters just like her who are all white, and so few who aren't. Even though, just by the percentages, there are more white people in fiction than there are white people in Europe or America.

Certainly, I could see the same being the case with gender. Particularly if, as with Kim Possible (a show I really liked as a kid), they end up relegating all of the male characters to the same roles they tend to give women. I mean, think about a genderflipped _Lord of the Rings_. There are like three women in all three books who have more than one line; the movies had to resort to the appendices to really bulk up a couple of the roles. I think women might just be more... used to having to empathize with men, whereas a young boy can easily go his whole childhood without watching or reading anything with a major female protagonist. Hell, even the Disney movies tend to let the princesses fall into a coma or something half way through so the princes/whimsical sidekicks can take over.

But I think that attitude will phase out as more works with women come into the mainstream. The recent Disney movies have had more active protagonists (though the one black one was a frog for most of the movie; so ehh on what was discussed in the first paragraph of this post), and _The Hunger Games_ is pretty popular. It might take a few years for all of these kids to grow up and start writing their own books, but progress tends to take time. We just have to make sure we don't take a dip while we're waiting, really.


----------



## Zero Angel

After watching the intro to Kim Possible again, I can't believe she had an exposed midriff in practically every scene! How did that make it into the design??? It's impractical when she's fighting, probably against school dress codes, and definitely not something I would want my hypothetical daughter looking to for fashion sense.


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## Mindfire

Zero Angel said:


> So basically, Mindfire, since we've pushed so much one way, you're afraid of it snapping back and going too far the other way. It would be nice to find some middle ground, and if you look at rational people making art nowadays, I think there are many succeeding.
> 
> I never noticed that in Kim Possible until you just now mentioned it, but Wade was a pretty main character, wasn't he? How many cool guys do you need in the show? Were there bad girls too though? (I really can't remember it. It's been years and I wouldn't describe myself as a fan, just someone that watched it occasionally).



Since I seem not to have been clear: I was making a point based on a view I unconsciously held _roughly ten years ago_. I no longer think in this fashion.

What I'm saying is that _in general_ those who resist more adequate female representation in entertainment are (as I was once upon a time) afraid of it snapping back the other way. And yes, I middle ground is greatly needed and I think shows like Avatar represent what that middle ground could be.


----------



## Mindfire

Zero Angel said:


> After watching the intro to Kim Possible again, I can't believe she had an exposed midriff in practically every scene! How did that make it into the design??? It's impractical when she's fighting, probably against school dress codes, and definitely not something I would want my hypothetical daughter looking to for fashion sense.



To be fair, they actually lampshade that during the show. And while she does bare the midriff, her design isn't really sexualized or seen as an object of fanservice. Well, not in the mainstream anyway. Rule 34 doesn't count.

Also, later on in the show she gets this battle suit:








As well as a slightly redesigned outfit:







Neither of which have the midriff open.


----------



## Devor

Mindfire said:


> On the contrary, if you look at just about every _other_ show that has "girl power!" as one of its key themes or just focuses on a female character, you'll note that the guys tend to be remarkably lame or downright stupid.



There was a video going around for a while where they staged a girl slapping a guy in public, then asked the bystanders what they thought.  They all said "N'eh, he probably deserved it."  Whereas, a man slapping a woman in public would usually make everyone angry.  There is a double standard where insults by women towards men is considered okay, even by the people who decry men doing so towards women.  There's a group out there protesting the "dumb dad" trope in sitcoms, which (at a guess) is probably the most prevalent insult-based trope going on today.

But . . . it's also the prevailing trend that men don't really care.  In many ways it's not just about the anti-group message, it's also about the way that message is received.  So long as women interpret the messages negatively, and men don't, then the "double standard" doesn't mean as much.

I agree that the anti-male attitude among many feminists is unhealthy for those involved, but I don't personally take offense.  Y'know?

((got ninja'ed by a lot, with no time to respond.  Oh well.))


----------



## Mindfire

Devor said:


> There was a video going around for a while where they staged a girl slapping a guy in public, then asked the bystanders what they thought.  They all said "N'eh, he probably deserved it."  Whereas, a man slapping a woman in public would usually make everyone angry.  There is a double standard where insults by women towards men is considered okay, even by the people who decry men doing so towards women.  There's a group out there protesting the "dumb dad" trope in sitcoms, which (at a guess) is probably the most prevalent insult-based trope going on today.
> 
> But . . . it's also the prevailing trend that men don't really care.  In many ways it's not just about the anti-group message, it's also about the way that message is received.  So long as women interpret the messages negatively, and men don't, then the "double standard" doesn't mean as much.
> 
> I agree that the anti-male attitude among many feminists is unhealthy for those involved, but I don't personally take offense.  Y'know?



I get that. But what I'm saying is that if any headway is to be made, _both_ sides need to reexamine their attitudes.


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## Ophiucha

Regarding the "dumb dad" trope, I must wonder, though, who do the protesters think are writing these characters? Most TV writers and directors are men. Most of these TV shows (Family Guy, The Simpsons, etc.) are targeted primarily at men. While I can empathize with the distaste for a gendered trope like that, women can direct the blame towards the predominantly male writers of the TV shows that feature them, and men... just sort of have to do the same? Yeah, it sucks, but it's _other men_ writing it,  you know? And I don't think it is written for women, since women don't watch a lot of these shows - not feminists, certainly.

There is the leeway with, like, yoghurt and cleaning product commercials, which _are _targeted towards women... but are still usually written by men.


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## Devor

Mindfire said:


> I get that. But what I'm saying is that if any headway is to be made, _both_ sides need to reexamine their attitudes.



That's true for most things.  Nobody is ever just wrong or right when you have complex issues likes these.


----------



## Devor

Ophiucha said:


> Regarding the "dumb dad" trope . . . And I don't think it is written for women, since women don't watch a lot of these shows - not feminists, certainly.



That was, like, the least important part of my post.

But you should know that almost all TV shows skew towards a female audience.


----------



## Ophiucha

Devor said:


> That was, like, the least important part of my post.



I disagreed with the rest and disregarded it to avoid a fight.



Devor said:


> But you should know that almost all TV shows skew towards a female audience.



I am actually, legitimately, laughing out loud right now. TV shows are usually written for men, they're almost all written _by _men, and if they _are _trying to target a female audience than I have never seen such an epic failure in all my years. How are TV shows written for women when shows like _Game of Thrones_ add extra sex scenes that only have female nudity? How are shows like _Family Guy_ written for women, full stop? There are like two sexist jokes per episode. How are shows like _Supernatural _written for women, when almost none of the female characters can make it to three appearances without being killed off? There are shows written for women - your _Vampire Diaries_ and your _Sex and the City_-type shows, but even those are still usually written by men. Both of those examples are, and as a woman, let me tell you, it _shows_ when you're watching them. And for every vapid reality show about the Jonas Brothers there's one about ice fisherman or lumberjacks. Some women don't mind, some women take it since it's better than nothing, but the idea that TV is skewed in any way _towards _women is laughable.


----------



## saellys

Mindfire said:


> Since I seem not to have been clear: I was making a point based on a view I unconsciously held _roughly ten years ago_. I no longer think in this fashion.
> 
> What I'm saying is that _in general_ those who resist more adequate female representation in entertainment are (as I was once upon a time) afraid of it snapping back the other way.



I've heard this argument before. I can understand that being an extreme reaction from someone who has never actually spoken to anyone who wants more representation. Past that point, it's baseless and irrational at best, and intentional muddying of the waters at worst. "I don't want men to end up how women are treated now!" is not a valid reason to resist treating women (or anyone else) better.


----------



## Ophiucha

saellys said:


> This article is multifaceted enough to warrant a thread of its own, but I didn't feel like starting one and then rehashing the same things we've been posting about for forty-two pages, so I'll just resurrect this thread to link it.
> 
> "'We Have Always Fought': Challenging the 'Women, Cattle, and Slaves' Narrative," by Kameron Hurley



Just realized I didn't actually reply to this article in the first place.

The author sort of... goes off after a few paragraphs, but I think it brings up a few nice points. Also, she brought up Tiptree's "The Women Men Don’t See" - link! - which I've always liked since it's such a simple little story that just says a lot more than you're expecting until the very end. Recommended reading for anyone who wants to read a feminist SFF story (it's pretty short, too, for those unwilling to tackle _The Handmaid's Tale_ or similar readings).


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## Mindfire

saellys said:


> I've heard this argument before. I can understand that being an extreme reaction from someone who has never actually spoken to anyone who wants more representation. Past that point, it's baseless and irrational at best, and intentional muddying of the waters at worst. "I don't want men to end up how women are treated now!" is not a valid reason to resist treating women (or anyone else) better.



I never said it was. I said the attitude exists. And if you want any progress to be made, the wall has to come down. For you to say that my statements are irrational and baseless is at best close-minded and at worst condescending.

Did you not read Ophiucha's post earlier? She seems to get it.


----------



## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> I disagreed with the rest and disregarded it to avoid a fight.



I find this amusing.



Ophiucha said:


> I am actually, legitimately, laughing out loud right now.



I think what Devor is saying that on average, women watch more tv than men. I have no way of knowing if that's true, but it's something to consider.


----------



## Devor

Ophiucha said:


> I am actually, legitimately, laughing out loud right now. TV shows are usually written for men, they're almost all written _by _men, and if they _are _trying to target a female audience than I have never seen such an epic failure in all my years.



Take a look.


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## Ophiucha

I don't think that means they _target _things towards women. Indeed, they don't. At all. I mean, women play video games - some polls even suggest _more _than men, but that doesn't mean developers and publishers put much effort in appealing to them. There's a joke going around that Call of Duty is getting a _dog _protagonist before it ever had a female protagonist.

Despite that, we had this controversy mere months ago. Women may very well watch more TV or play more video games than men, but they are not the target audience. So I think it is important to distinguish between who _is _the audience and who is the target audience, because the latter is almost always 'adult white males' but the former isn't.


----------



## Devor

Ophiucha said:


> I don't think that means they _target _things towards women. Indeed, they don't. At all.



That just isn't true.  I've sat the classes, heard the execs, and just showed you that the overwhelming number of shows skew towards a female audience.  Market Research is a science.  Believe me, they know who they're targeting, why, and how.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

No, Ophi, Devor is right.  While the majority of TV writers are men, the majority of viewers are women.  Sexist jokes on _Family Guy_ aside, yeah, it's women making those shows so popular.  So, could we call both men and women enablers of stupidity?

Now, ordinarily tweaking Mindfire's tail is one of my favorite things,  but he's making a good observation.  I've been seeing the "feminism will emasculate men" fear since I was a teen in the 90's, when that book _Men Who Smell Like Wolves_ or whatever it was called came out.  I saw Ironman 3 a couple weeks back.  He was pretty awesome, and faced down some serious personal issues with the bad guys.  Nice thing was, Penny Potts got to kick butt, too.  So, good observation, but I'm not seeing superheroes being turned into wimps by getting in touch with their "feminine" sides.


----------



## Jabrosky

Mindfire said:


> I never said it was. I said the attitude exists.


I'm sure it does if you look hard enough. Human beings have an uncanny talent for developing the strangest and most twisted attitudes or beliefs about anything. The question is how influential are the people who espouse the attitude you're complaining about?


----------



## Ophiucha

More college age boys watch _My Little Pony_ than little girls. Does that mean they changed the show so that it was rated MA and put on HBO to appease the majority of their viewers? No. They had a target audience, little girls, and they write for that audience. They appreciate their older fans, because hey, ratings. But they don't write for them, and they don't change things for them. You'll see the writers of _Supernatural_ and _Teen Wolf_ give little winks and nods to their female fans, maybe have the actors of whatever gay ship is popular hug it out off-set, but it's not like they would ever change their script so Dean and Castiel were together. Why? Because the target audience is college age white dudes. It's about bros who like busty Asian girls and cars and classic rock and killing things with guns, and the female audience is incidental.

To an extent, I agree with aelowan. Maybe we, women, should 'vote with our dollars' (or in this case, our ad revenue/ratings). But the creators are not changing their shows just because we're watching them.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Ophiucha said:


> To an extent, I agree with aelowan. Maybe we, women, should 'vote with our dollars' (or in this case, our ad revenue/ratings). But the creators are not changing their shows just because we're watching them.



That's the thing.  Creators won't change their shows _because_ we're watching them.  Why should they?  We watch, because the thinking is "It's better than nothing," and they get their ad revenue.  If the people who complained about the roles of women and minorities on TV voted with their dollars, things would change.  Look at what it's done for the LGBT community.  You have any idea how many years and how much money we've poured into changing popular culture?  I remember the cries of triumph in my apartment building the year _Philadelphia_ took Best Picture.  I was 19 years-old.  Change takes time, and money.  Lots and lots and lots of money.  And enough people standing up together and saying "that's enough."  

And I mean both men and women.  We need to stop trying to prove one is better than the other, and celebrate our differences.  Isn't that the beautiful thing about having 2 sexes, anyway?


----------



## saellys

Mindfire said:


> I never said it was. I said the attitude exists. And if you want any progress to be made, the wall has to come down. For you to say that my statements are irrational and baseless is at best close-minded and at worst condescending.
> 
> Did you not read Ophiucha's post earlier? She seems to get it.



Oh, believe me, I "get it". I know the attitude exists. I said earlier that I've encountered it. I've made it very, very clear that I want progress. 

The argument you described is irrational and baseless once the person who actually believes it encounters any form of education. Feel free to explain how we are supposed to make any walls come down if someone insists, after being presented with the arguments, on clinging to a fear of a hypothetical future matriarchy that has absolutely no connection to the reality of the goal. 

I'm here to open eyes and educate people as best I can; I'm not going to bother having a discussion with someone who keeps insisting that I want to see a male face under a jackboot. It's not true, and arguing that point is a waste of my time.


----------



## Jabrosky

To be sure, sometimes it is hard to know exactly how to represent women and minorities in the media without upsetting someone. People do not always agree on what counts as offensive.

For example, I once saw "feminist" ads for women's lingerie protesting rape culture, and they used as their mascot an overweight African-American woman. Immediately my racism detector went off because there is a deeply rooted history of representing black women in the media as physically unattractive and sexually undesirable (the so-called "Mammy" archetype). When I pointed this out, one of these "feminists" got angry at me and ranted about the media idealization of thinness for women. Apparently the ads' creators wanted to be "body positive" with their choice of an overweight mascot, but why did she have to be black?

But then, as an artist I've received flack from "feminists" for drawing leaner, physically attractive black women in skimpy lingerie, which in their view is offensive racial fetishization. This leads us to the following dilemma:

* Fat black woman in lingerie = body-positive despite the obvious Mammy connotations

* Thin and beautiful black woman in lingerie = racial fetishization

What I mean to get at is that no matter how you represent an oppressed group, someone is going to find something offensive about it.


----------



## Mindfire

saellys said:


> Oh, believe me, I "get it". I know the attitude exists. I said earlier that I've encountered it. I've made it very, very clear that I want progress.
> 
> The argument you described is irrational and baseless once the person who actually believes it encounters any form of education. Feel free to explain how we are supposed to make any walls come down if someone insists, after being presented with the arguments, on clinging to a fear of a hypothetical future matriarchy that has absolutely no connection to the reality of the goal.
> 
> I'm here to open eyes and educate people as best I can; I'm not going to bother having a discussion with someone who keeps insisting that I want to see a male face under a jackboot. It's not true, and arguing that point is a waste of my time.



Some portion of the population will always be idiots. The rest of us should be invested in discussions like this one, which is in itself a marker of progress. Further progress depends on the willingness of both sides of the conflict to adapt. Realistically, you can't expect one side to concede everything. Both sides need to meet halfway. As for what concessions feminists might need to make, I would suggest abandoning or ostracizing the more "radical" or extremist sects of the movement. Those fringe groups, while small, amount to most of your bad press. Eschewing the word feminism altogether may be a step in the right direction. As for the anxious male side of the equation, I think some empathy and open-mindedness is in order, as well as a willingness to cut down on the cleavage if only in the name of keeping the peace. We need to move out of the combative phase and into the cooperative phase.


----------



## Mindfire

Jabrosky said:


> What I mean to get at is that no matter how you represent an oppressed group, someone is going to find something offensive about it.



This is true. No matter what happens _someone_ will always be offended. But that doesn't make these dilemmas impossible, just really, really hard.


----------



## Devor

Ophiucha said:


> . . . . and the female audience is incidental.
> 
> To an extent, I agree with aelowan. Maybe we, women, should 'vote with our dollars' (or in this case, our ad revenue/ratings). But the creators are not changing their shows just because we're watching them.



It's still not true that shows don't target women.  Maybe you're mentioning some of the very-few exceptions, but shows target women deliberately.  The "dumb dad" trope we were just discussing is the perfect example for everything we were just talking about.  The "dumb dad" is almost essential in sitcoms because they're considered _non-threatening male authority figures_ to female viewers.  A strong male parent turns away too much of the female audience.  You can ask the execs; that's what they'll tell you.

Again, market research is a science, and the execs know what they're doing when they pick their shows.  You design the product for the audience, that's the basic rule of marketing.

Also, while women play more "video games," they do not play anywhere near as many console video games.  Women respond in surveys that what they want out of a video game is very different from what men want, and it has nothing to do with colors, imagery and the gender of the protagonists.  Women respond that they want to play video games to help them _relax_, while men want games that are exciting to them.  Just having a console appeals to active gaming - the audience is already built to be male, so the games are built around that audience.


----------



## Feo Takahari

The risk of supporting minority representation is that sometimes the artist doesn't actually deserve the support. Tyler Perry has steadily offended more and more people, but there are still a lot of people who watch him just because he makes movies for the black community.


----------



## Devor

aelowan said:


> That's the thing.  Creators won't change their shows _because_ we're watching them.  Why should they?  We watch, because the thinking is "It's better than nothing," and they get their ad revenue.  If the people who complained about the roles of women and minorities on TV voted with their dollars, things would change.



I think part of the confusion is that, well, some of the issues people complain about have nothing to do with why they watch the show and the way they're being included in the target market.  If I listed five ways a show might gain or lose female viewers, my list - having studied marketing in NYC - might be very different than yours, being a woman.  It's far more subtle than you might expect.  Shows target women a lot, even if they still give you something to complain about.


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> The risk of supporting minority representation is that sometimes the artist doesn't actually deserve the support. Tyler Perry has steadily offended more and more people, but there are still a lot of people who watch him just because he makes movies for the black community.



Speaking as a black person, Tyler Perry can shove it.


----------



## Ophiucha

I might grant you that, perhaps, execs _think _that these things will appeal to women and toss them in (though again, they are _not_ the target audience; they are an audience who gets a token character and a nod). But they are not the target audience, that is obvious, and their choices are... questionable. I don't know many women who _like_ the 'dumb dad' trope, to stick with this example. He's not attractive, he's not likeable; some women might get a laugh out of 'haha men are dumb', but I don't think it is enough to make a trope. Why would I want to see a woman having to deal with a manchild who gets away with everything and never faces any consequences? If I wanted a non-threatening male character, I'd write a feminist husband who took his wife's last name played by Ryan Gosling. Now that'd draw in a few ladies. These adult manchilds are just an extra burden for the wife characters, and while some women might sympathize (and I pity them), that's not _appealing_.

Also, looking at the specific shows on that link you posted earlier, I can't help but notice that the two big examples of 'dumb dad' characters are two of the only shows with more male viewers than female viewers.

Simpsons	0.67
Family Guy	0.68

But I mean, I just don't understand how you can argue that execs will always market to the largest audience, always, when they clearly and blatantly don't? Like, remove gender from this for a second. I mean, here's a 2011 stat chart for video games. The average gamer is in their late 30s, average buyer in their early 40s. Games that are played most often are puzzle/game show/trivia/board games, but those are not the games with the most marketing or the biggest budgets. People are playing more games on mobile devices, but companies like EA still focus their efforts on console gaming - sure, they'll toss out a few Facebook and iPhone games, they'll take the money, but they don't _focus_ on it. They have their target demographic, and they don't try to change that.

More women are gaming, more women are watching TV, and that's great. Execs love that. But it's going to take a while before they really compensate for it, and if you're to be believed, it's going to take a while before they really understand what women actually want from their shows/games/books/whatever.


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## Jabrosky

I think the reason father figures are depicted as dumb in many shows is because they are the stars. They're supposed to be the ones who make us laugh. The female characters are by consequence less interesting even if they seem more intelligent.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Jabrosky said:


> I think the reason father figures are depicted as dumb in many shows is because they are the stars. They're supposed to be the ones who make us laugh. The female characters are by consequence less interesting even if they seem more intelligent.



I dunno... I feel it's the safer choice to make if a character needs to play the dunce role. The "Dumb Dad" trope will offend some men for certain. However, you're dealing with a group which has been largely advantaged in society for a long time. Maybe its easier for men to shrug off? I'm a part if that group...white males between 25 & 50. This trope only bothers me because it's overplayed & tiresome not because I'm offended.

I'm not sure I'd feel the same if I identified with a group that's been the object of modern discrimination. My gut tells me it'd be different.


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## saellys

Mindfire said:


> Some portion of the population will always be idiots. The rest of us should be invested in discussions like this one, which is in itself a marker of progress. Further progress depends on the willingness of both sides of the conflict to adapt. Realistically, you can't expect one side to concede everything. Both sides need to meet halfway. As for what concessions feminists might need to make, I would suggest abandoning or ostracizing the more "radical" or extremist sects of the movement. Those fringe groups, while small, amount to most of your bad press. Eschewing the word feminism altogether may be a step in the right direction. As for the anxious male side of the equation, I think some empathy and open-mindedness is in order, as well as a willingness to cut down on the cleavage if only in the name of keeping the peace. We need to move out of the combative phase and into the cooperative phase.



Here's that muddying of the waters I was talking about. Instead of moving this conversation forward, I am going to waste five minutes on a post that reassures a hypothetical you that I'm not out to usher in a female super race, because just saying I'm not out to usher in a female super race apparently isn't enough, and God forbid that a hypothetical you just _assume_ I'm not a misandrist, the same way I assume you're not a misogynist. But at least the next time this comes up, I can just direct a non-hypothetical whomever to this post. 

Feminists do (constantly, in the course of discussions like this) abandon the extremist sects of the movement. The word feminism isn't going away because, unlike "egalitarianism" or any of the other options I've heard, it implies that there's a problem that affects one gender more than the other. Cleavage is irrelevant and no one's business. 

So, when I'm in the middle of a discussion and I reiterate all these things for the umpteenth time and I _still_ hear "I don't want men to get treated like women are getting treated now," which happens on the regular, how exactly am I supposed to handhold and mollycoddle my fearful hypothetically-oppressed male counterpart into reality? At what point, after how much time, do I get to throw up my hands and leave this dude for someone else? When does it cease being my sole responsibility to pry off someone else's death grip on their tired old prejudices, all while being labeled something I'm not and getting told I'm doing it all wrong and that "meeting halfway" in the pursuit of my cause requires renaming my cause so it's less uncomfortable for men? This is _supposed_ to make men uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable _every day of my life_.


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## Ophiucha

I kind of wonder where that trope (the dumb dad) really did came from, now. Anybody here happen to be an expert on the history of sitcoms?


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## Mindfire

saellys said:


> Here's that muddying of the waters I was talking about. Instead of moving this conversation forward, I am going to waste five minutes on a post that reassures a hypothetical you that I'm not out to usher in a female super race, because just saying I'm not out to usher in a female super race apparently isn't enough, and God forbid that a hypothetical you just _assume_ I'm not a misandrist, the same way I assume you're not a misogynist. But at least the next time this comes up, I can just direct a non-hypothetical whomever to this post.
> 
> Feminists do (constantly, in the course of discussions like this) abandoning the extremist sects of the movement. The word feminism isn't going away because, unlike "egalitarianism" or any of the other options I've heard, it implies that there's a problem that affects one gender more than the other. Cleavage is irrelevant and no one's business.
> 
> So, when I'm in the middle of a discussion and I reiterate all these things for the umpteenth time and I _still_ hear "I don't want men to get treated like women are getting treated now," which happens on the regular, how exactly am I supposed to handhold and mollycoddle my fearful hypothetically-oppressed male counterpart into reality? At what point, after how much time, do I get to throw up my hands and leave this dude for someone else? When does it cease being my sole responsibility to pry off someone else's death grip on their tired old prejudices, all while being labeled something I'm not and getting told I'm doing it all wrong and that "meeting halfway" in the pursuit of my cause requires renaming my cause so it's less uncomfortable for men? This is _supposed_ to make men uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable _every day of my life_.



The cleavage remark was a humorous way of addressing the uncomfortable fact that is the male proclivity to oversexualize female characters. No need to be harsh. Incidentally, your post is a prime example of the attitude I mentioned earlier. And people will always misunderstand your views. What do you lose by explaining them? If they choose to be willfully ignorant that's on them, but at least you tried right? And I never said this was your sole responsibility. There are two sides to the conversation you'll remember.

Another problem with this issue is that while there are plenty of reasonable people on both sides of the issue, it's the radicals who always seem to be the loudest. Gotta do something about that.


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## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> I kind of wonder where that trope (the dumb dad) really did came from, now. Anybody here happen to be an expert on the history of sitcoms?



According to TV Tropes, it started out as a subversion of the "master of the house", wise and in-charge father archetype that was common in the 50s.


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## Devor

Ophiucha said:


> I might grant you that, perhaps, execs _think _that these things will appeal to women and toss them in (though again, they are _not_ the target audience; they are an audience who gets a token character and a nod). But they are not the target audience, that is obvious, and their choices are... questionable. I don't know many women who _like_ the 'dumb dad' trope, to stick with this example. He's not attractive, he's not likeable; some women might get a laugh out of 'haha men are dumb', but I don't think it is enough to make a trope.



Three things:

The dad is the least appealing character to women in that kind of sitcom, and the weak dumb dad subverts the aspects of the character which turn women off.  It becomes necessary.

Plenty of "dumb dads" do appeal to women, but not remotely in the way you're thinking of.  Once you take the edge off the character, many women start to see the dumb dad as the ideal husband, depending on other aspects of how he is portrayed.

And again, Market Research is a science.  It's not about what execs think.  It's what the research informs them.  And I'm pretty serious about that.  Everybody pictures the "focus group" of ten people chatting in a room, but the reality is that shows are tested on hundreds of viewers while still being piloted, that extensive demographic data is available for who watches what, that there's layers upon layers of data mining.

Someone working for one of the big four networks can tell you not only how many women like the dumb dad, but how many of _which groups of women_ like them and why.  And even those groups of women will be established through a process called K-Means Clustering, which links common patterns of behavior from raw data.




> Also, looking at the specific shows on that link you posted earlier, I can't help but notice that the two big examples of 'dumb dad' characters are two of the only shows with more male viewers than female viewers.



Well, Simpsons and Family Guy aren't really the best examples.  Among other things, they aren't the conventional sitcom so much as they are mocking the conventional sitcom, so they play very differently.




> But I mean, I just don't understand how you can argue that execs will always market to the largest audience, always, when they clearly and blatantly don't?
> 
> Like, remove gender from this for a second. I mean, here's a 2011 stat chart for video games. The average gamer is in their late 30s, average buyer in their early 40s. Games that are played most often are puzzle/game show/trivia/board games, but those are not the games with the most marketing or the biggest budgets. People are playing more games on mobile devices, but companies like EA still focus their efforts on console gaming - sure, they'll toss out a few Facebook and iPhone games, they'll take the money, but they don't _focus_ on it. They have their target demographic, and they don't try to change that.



There's a lot going on in the gaming industry which makes it very different from the television industry.  Video games require a massive built in infrastructure, and many games sell based on the reputation of the company.  Games also need a financial investment from their customers.

All of that makes a big difference.  What you're seeing about people playing platform games, for instance, is people specifically buying _Nintendo's_ platform games.  It's not true that any well-marketed platform game will jump to the top of the list.  Even platform games built for the Wii, by companies other than Nintendo, have flopped.  Even those that have gotten rave reviews.

That also bears out in surveys.  Even though sales for platform games are high - driven by Nintendo's sales - when asked what games they're most interested, very few people will even list platform games.

Many of those sales - trivia, game show, whatever else - were also fueled by the lack of competition for a good game being sold on the low-priced Wii.

At the same time, it's also true that Nintendo can't produce a story game worth a damn - _Metro Other M_, for instance, was their big recent effort.  It sold well as a platformer but was panned for its storytelling.  The two types of games take very different skill sets from the massive staff designing the game.  Nintendo simply cannot do it.

That means that companies are heavily invested and committed to producing games of the same genre and overall brand they were producing yesterday.  Major efforts to switch genres often flop.

I guess that's the simple answer.  Big-time inertia.  But there's other things going on.  XBox and Playstation don't want to appeal to the casual gamer.  They're selling $300 consoles, and casual gamers won't buy them.  Selling a console is not about what games you'll buy, but what games _you have to have_.  Those aren't platformers.

In the case of Microsoft's XBox, they _have_ to sell $300 consoles because their long-term plan is for the XBox to replace your cable box, dvd player, and Tivo.  They'll never do that selling cheaper games for casual players.

And of course, there are plenty of games being made that are platformers, trivia and the like - for the iphone.  Just because EA isn't making many of them - which isn't quite true, as they've bought their way into the market by acquiring Playfish - it doesn't mean they're not being made.


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## saellys

Mindfire said:


> Incidentally, your post is a prime example of the attitude I mentioned earlier.



My post is a detailed description of how I don't have the attitude you mentioned earlier. I can't win here. 



Mindfire said:


> And people will always misunderstand your views. What do you lose by explaining them?



Time. My patience and/or calm, if the conversation goes on as long as this one has and travels the same worn out roads. Potentially, an opportunity to discuss the topic with someone who might actually see things my way and help do something about it instead.



Mindfire said:


> If they choose to be willfully ignorant that's on them, but at least you tried right?



Having done this again and again and again with people who choose to be willfully ignorant, I'm still trying to find the point of trying. Lately I've tried to feel out who is receptive and who isn't so I don't waste my breath or end up getting lectured about how I'm doing feminism wrong. 



Mindfire said:


> Another problem with this issue is that while there are plenty of reasonable people on both sides of the issue, it's the radicals who always seem to be the loudest. Gotta do something about that.



All I can do about that is speak louder, but apparently that's the wrong thing to do.


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## Philip Overby

*No one has to "win" the discussion. Let's keep that in mind. Some people are just going to disagree and not change their stance. All you can do is present your argument and see how others respond to it.*

On topic (sort of, since this isn't a discussion about fantasy anymore), I find the "dumb dad" trope to be pretty irritating as well. Most recently there was a commercial that showed a man sitting on the couch scratching, farting, and drooling as he watched TV. It's reminiscent of the old ads that used to have things like "So easy the wife can do it!" Neither are good representations. I prefer to see the pendulum somewhere in the middle myself. 

Why are dumb dads presented in media and commercials now? These certainly aren't marketed towards men. Or maybe they are. I'm no expert on these things...thankfully.


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## Mindfire

saellys said:


> My post is a detailed description of how I don't have the attitude you mentioned earlier. I can't win here.



Okay, full disclosure: I cheated. I subtly edited my statements to intentionally draw out a reaction from you so I could use it as an example. That was unfair and I apologize.



saellys said:


> Time. My patience and/or calm, if the conversation goes on as long as this one has and travels the same worn out roads. Potentially, an opportunity to discuss the topic with someone who might actually see things my way and help do something about it instead.



And you're also losing an opportunity to get someone to understand your views who might not otherwise if you just wrote them off as a simpleton.



saellys said:


> Having done this again and again and again with people who choose to be willfully ignorant, I'm still trying to find the point of trying. Lately I've tried to feel out who is receptive and who isn't so I don't waste my breath or end up getting lectured about how I'm doing feminism wrong.



Are you sure you're looking for someone receptive and not just someone who already agrees with you? And if that shot was directed at me, I was only suggesting ways to communicate your views that might be more effective from a pragmatic standpoint. Whether that's feminism right or wrong is your call I suppose. 



saellys said:


> All I can do about that is speak louder, but apparently that's the wrong thing to do.


Or we could silence the radicals. MUHAHAHAHAHA! But on a serious note. I don't think it's a matter of louder per ce. But the constructive dialogue needs to take center stage and the radicals need to be marginalized. Please note that my statements may not apply to you specifically. I'm more referring to feminism I encounter in general.


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## Feo Takahari

We don't lack for harangues. I read dozens of them before I ever got involved in feminist stuff. What got me involved was one person who clearly and politely explained the problem and invited me to help.

You have to remember that just because you've given twenty people polite explanations doesn't mean the one you're currently arguing with has heard any of them. If you're polite and he's rude, you might as well move on to the next one. But if you're polite and he's polite, maybe he'll explain your position to the next person, and you won't have as many people to either explain to or harangue. (And what else can you do--hit him over the head with your protest sign?)

P.S. For what it's worth, this is also how I handle the anti-evolution crowd.


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## Ophiucha

Devor said:


> -snipped for space-



Ignoring your optimistic view of the ratings system and market research for a moment, let's say that executives have in front of them a completely accurate split of every person who watches every show. That is irrelevant, frankly, if they don't do anything with it. Women are viewing their shows more. Here's what that translates to: more yoghurt ads, more ads for PMS medicine, more cleaning supply ads, and absolutely no reflection on the content of the show. 

I don't really _care _if they know we're watching. I don't really care if they change the ads to fit the viewers. I want to see them change the content. I want to see them ask real questions about what we want to see instead of just queueing up a few Weight Watchers ads and calling it a day. I have had NBC and other websites pop-up a survey about 'what I want to see' and nowhere on those questionnaires was I asked 'would you like to see more female protagonists?', because they never ask. They ask me what time slots I prefer, what genres I like, how many hours/week I watch TV - in gaming, they ask me which game consoles I use, what genres I like, how many games I buy per month.

That's all great, and it gets you some stats. Women age 18-24 are PC gamers, prefer strategy games, buy 1-2 games per month. (That is a stat I made up based on myself, for the record.) _Maybe_, if that demographic also happens to be the biggest (or, at least, the ones who answer the polls more often), they'll make a few extra strategy games. Which is awesome. The problem is that when I boot up that game and it's still only got a playable male character and there are misogynistic jokes and busty babes make up the majority of the female cast. (And let's not get into how they respond if the game does poorly because of this.)

Maybe all of this could just be a case of male writers trying to please and not really getting it. But honestly, I can't help but wonder if they honestly care at all as long as we'll still put up with it. Which is a point that was brought up earlier, I think, with the Kim Possible discussion. I think women are used to casual misogyny, used to having to empathize with male characters, used to seeing all of the women be dead or damsels and so we... don't really mind watching shows that feature that? Whereas shows that break those standards, shows with prominent female characters, just do _so _poorly with male audiences that the studio execs cut them (no matter how many women are watching). And, I mean, I'm guilty of that, too. I kind of hate the writers of Supernatural, particularly after a certain female character was killed this season (no spoilers, but if you're watching, you know who I mean). Does that mean I stopped watching the show? No. Why? Crowley's fun, Dean's hot, and Game of Thrones has been a bit boring this season and I need my fantasy fill every week. So if I happen to be picked by the Nielsen company I guess I am just another tick on the female side of Supernatural viewership and they're just going to keep thinking I'm happy with that, and that's part of the problem.

But then, it'd be a lot easier to change the channel if there were anything better to change it to.


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## Devor

Ophiucha said:


> *Whereas shows that break those standards, shows with prominent female characters, just do so poorly with male audiences that the studio execs cut them* (no matter how many women are watching). And, I mean, I'm guilty of that, too. I kind of hate the writers of Supernatural, particularly after a certain female character was killed this season (no spoilers, but if you're watching, you know who I mean). Does that mean I stopped watching the show? No. Why? Crowley's fun, Dean's hot, and Game of Thrones has been a bit boring this season and I need my fantasy fill every week. So if I happen to be picked by the Nielsen company I guess I am just another tick on the female side of Supernatural viewership and they're just going to keep thinking I'm happy with that, and that's part of the problem.



I would offer, maybe you're in the minority of women in which shows you're interested in, because you do keep naming the shows I would say appeal towards men.  Maybe you just don't see the female targeting as much with the subset of shows you're interested in?

I bolded a piece above because it's a thing, and I think I've mentioned it before.  Women will sort of absorb a genuine interest in anything, no matter what it is, even the sort of sordid misogynist things we don't talk about in public.  Something can appeal to men in the extreme and still carry a reasonable female audience.  But for whatever reason, men don't pick up female interests anywhere near as much.  Veering too feminine will rapidly lose the male audience, so you only see it happen when the female audience is sizable.

But the TV audience of women is sizable, and it does happen.  WB, for several seasons, openly said it was targeting women and only women with every show.

Also, although you argue for wanting more female protagonists, I don't think it's actually as influential in drawing female viewers as you might expect.  Fringe, for example, has a strong, non-sexual female lead but was one of the few shows on the list that skews male, at 0.95.  Supernatural, on the other hand, is the show you're complaining about, which skews female at 1.27.  Their overall ratings weren't too far apart.  For a couple of seasons they aired at the same time.  Yet, the problem show appealed more to women than the one with a leading female role.

By the way, off the list I posted, my favorite show was Grey's Anatomy, and I can't stand Family Guy.  Also I'm a stay-at-home dad who only owns a Wii and loves platformers.  I mention all that because sometimes people don't realize how much an attitude towards a conversation doesn't always reflect much outside the conversation, and then people assume a whole lot which isn't true.  I studied marketing and econ at a business school, and I follow both TV and Gaming, a little, because I'm still fascinated with the marketing aspects of it all.  But please, don't mistake my disagreements about a marketing assessment for an endorsement of all sorts of things I'm not talking about.  I keep saying "Market Research is a science," and the thing about science is that it makes no value judgments*.  Saying that women aren't as drawn to female protagonists as you think is a factual statement, not a value judgement on whether there should or should not be more female protagonists.

In TV, I don't really think there's a problem, except with some of the premium channels like HBO.  But then, I watch a lot of shows with female leads.  In fantasy novels, I think there's a problem, but that it's mostly less antagonistic than it's made out to be.

*Weird.  According to Chrome's spellcheck, judgement is right, but judg*e*ments has to lose the e.  What's the deal?


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## Devor

Ophiucha said:


> I don't really _care _if they know we're watching. I don't really care if they change the ads to fit the viewers. I want to see them change the content. I want to see them ask real questions about what we want to see instead of just queueing up a few Weight Watchers ads and calling it a day. I have had NBC and other websites pop-up a survey about 'what I want to see' and nowhere on those questionnaires was I asked 'would you like to see more female protagonists?', because they never ask. They ask me what time slots I prefer, what genres I like, how many hours/week I watch TV - in gaming, they ask me which game consoles I use, what genres I like, how many games I buy per month.



Also, I do want to respond to this, just as an aside.  Those are the surveys trying to figure out which ads to show you.  Those _aren't_ the surveys trying to figure out which shows to air.  Those are done a lot differently.  Usually they set up in malls at a handful of select cities - cities which, taken together, are pretty good representations of the country's demographics.  They offer free movie tickets to show people pilots in a little poll booth setup.  Sometimes there's even a camera tracking taking your eye movements.  They ask several things so you don't even know what they're really testing, the show or the ads.  And they get a lot of information indirectly - they don't care about what you say you'll watch, but what you actually watch, which are very often not the same thing.

Also, the questions can get weird.  _If the show was a person, what kind of person would it be?_  They ask those kinds of questions because they need to interpret the results qualitatively to figure out which direction to take the show.  There's usually not a straightforward answer, where everyone is going to say "this show needs A."  But if they can pick up the vibe you're getting, they can add or remove elements to fix the vibe or strengthen it.


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## Ophiucha

Addendum: female protagonists who aren't written by _JJ Abrams_.

I'd concede that women do not necessarily watch a show _just _because it has a female protagonist, but I don't think that's out of a lack of desire for a good one, but rather how shows with female protagonists are marketed, what genres they are, what sort of women these protagonists are, etc.. There is no 'female Dean Winchester' heading her own TV show. There is a lack of variety among the female characters we have. I feel like women might have a lower tolerance for rehashed female protagonists - like, there really are only a handful in non-soap operas, so when they come out with Olivia Dunham anyone over - what? - 18? is just going to say 'yeah, I've already got Dana Scully' and ignore the show. But this tends to happen, a lot, with female protagonists. How many of today's fantasy leading females can be described as 'human women in a love triangle with two supernatural creatures, at least one is a vampire and the other is either also a vampire or perhaps a werewolf'? Loathe though I am to give Twilight any props, it changed things enough from Buffy by having Bella be separate from the supernatural action - the passive protagonist to Buffy's peppy and active role in the narrative - that it could thrive, but none of the derivatives have had quite the same power. A few young teen girls who _didn't _grow up on Buffy (and let's be honest, my generation watching Buffy is basically just making up for our tragic lack of Xena, though with more romance) watching the shows where the women are active. And I refuse to believe that Scully wasn't heavily influenced by Clarice Starling before her. We get stuck in these little loops of the same character being used over and over again, whereas male characters get a lot more personality and... professions.

I'm not sure it's entirely fair to judge these shows by percentages regardless, though. I mean, I feel like women just watch more TV than men in _general_. Saying more women watch the news than men doesn't mean that men care less about the news, just that women leave the TV on more. Women are still more likely to be stay-at-home mothers/wives than men are to be stay-at-home husbands/fathers, so they probably just watch the TV while they're taking care of the kids or whatever. I went browsing the Nielsen polls and apparently African Americans watch more TV than white people (despite being an actual minority in this country, unlike women who are 51% of the population). And I know they'd like to see more black characters in fiction - this is a well-vocalized talking point in their community, and they've done studies on the effects of black children who grow up with primarily white TV. And yet there are still fewer POC characters on TV than there are POC people in America. I don't want to co-opt their discussions, and there are differences in how the two play out on network TV in particular, but it's worth noting that this is not an issue unique to gender.

These issues are incredibly multi-faceted, and have roots going back generations. It's not as simple as saying 'they're aware that women watch their shows' or even that they're _trying _to target a certain audience, which they definitely don't always do. The shows they target towards women don't necessarily attract as many women as the shows they target towards men, and I've yet to see any evidence that suggests they really understand why. And I wish more networks would do something other than condescend to the women who decide to pick up a show like Supernatural or whathaveyou. It's about understanding what, exactly, appeals to women, why, if that's even okay (internalized misogyny is a hell of a drug), and acknowledging that even with the best intentions, a staff of 8 male writers and 1 female writer - a common distribution - is not going to always yield the desired results. There are problems on all levels of the entertainment industry, but I feel like tossing out that execs are 'targeting female audiences' is erasing the innumerable problems with how they go about that, their condescending attitude towards many of the female fans, and ultimately how little it seems to have changed the content on their networks. I don't think it's malicious in intent, just... a lack of forward thinking and a few too many men in high positions who think they understand women better than they really do (not through their own fault, perhaps, but there's only so much they can understand).

Mostly, I just think we should hire more female writers and let them decide for themselves what appeals to a female audience. Then we might reach something of an equilibrium. And we should stop acting like execs will always change with the tides of money, because let's be real, sometimes they get stuck in their ways, too. TV is more fluid than most industries, and it's still problematic as heck, but publishers. Have mercy, they still try to get women to initialize their names to hide their gender. Do women read? Yes, I'm fairly certain more than men. Does that matter? Apparently not... and the books we get all have awful covers that nobody wants to buy and be seen reading. Bless Amazon for the Kindle.

P.S. Maybe 'judgements' is... used more in the UK? I can't say I pluralize the word often... but that is rather strange, yes.


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## Feo Takahari

While this regards a different industry, I feel like it might be relevant. (*Warning* for profanity and clips from _Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball_.)


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## Devor

Ophis, I only have like five minutes, and then I don't care about this conversation anymore ever.

But targeting - I should post something in Marketing sometime about targeting.  It doesn't work the way you think it does.  For instance, I tried to watch Supernatural, as a guy, and my reaction was "I can't watch these pretty boys."  But even that's a weird example.  If you tell people to rank a list of like five things, "dialogue," "Character," "suspense," and so on, men and women will rank them differently.  It's much less about the number of women on a show and much more about the type of show, the way the characters speak, how complex the plot is, or the kind of character arcs / relationship developments, and so on.

Also, looking just at the fantasy television shows on the primetime networks right now, I don't think there's any shortage of women leads.  Take Once Upon a Time, Revolution, Beauty and the Beast, or the Vampire Diaries.  That's compared with Grimm, Arrow and Supernatural.  That's not an overwhelmingly male-marketed group by any stretch of the imagination.


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## Ophiucha

My final post on marketing/target audiences before I'm out.

I'll focus on one thing. The shows you mentioned, excluding Revolution. One, Revolution does not star a female protagonist; at best it stars two protagonists, one of each gender, but I would argue that Billy Burke's character is more prominent, at least in the first few episodes (as that's all I watched of it). Two, that show is written by JJ Abrams (discussed above) and Eric Kripke (who created _Supernatural_). Mercy.

As for the other shows, I can't help but notice that... the ones with male leads are generally more well-received (and by proxy, have bigger budgets), with one exception. The fairy tale ones. Once Upon a Time is generally regarded as better than Grimm. Perhaps that is just because it has ties to the Disney company and can use more modern icons of fairy tales by using Disney's names and imagery, perhaps it started with a higher budget, perhaps it is just a genuinely better show. Indeed, going over to Metacritic, by and large most shows with male leads have higher scores than ones with female leads. Is that because of the gender of the protagonist? I'd like to think it isn't, but to say "well women don't watch Beauty and the Beast as much as they do Arrow" seems sort of pointless when everyone agrees that Arrow is a vastly superior show. Is it marketing at fault? Is it the execs just giving it a bigger budget? Are execs not taking risks - could a show like Supernatural have done as well if they had just changed Dean and Sam into two sisters on the road instead of two brothers, and were studios unwilling to take that sort of chance? Or does it just never occur to them to even _consider _taking that chance unless the show is about romance and love triangles and fluffy fairy tales instead of about shooting demons in the face with a shot gun?

Is it a coincidence that the promotional image for Beauty and the Beast, despite being about the female lead, has the male lead in the foreground and the female lead behind him and to the side? That nearly all promotional images for Once Upon a Time feature the gender-diverse cast instead of just Snow White? That there doesn't seem to be a single promotional image for The Vampire Diaries that doesn't emphasize the steamy love triangle? Revolution is the only show here that ever really features a female protagonist purposely ahead of the male lead, and even then it is about 50/50, alternating with the male lead from image to image. Even Fringe, referenced above as a rare TV show about a non-sexualized female lead, has few promotional images that feature her and her alone, and only one in a couple dozen that have her in the foreground with the men in the back. One promotional image even has her in a submissive pose to a male character.

Is it a coincidence that there are no women in the promotional images of either Supernatural or Grimm, while shows like Once Upon a Time will shove characters like Rumpelstiltskin into an image despite him being far less prominent than at least three female characters? That Arya, Cersei, Catelyn, and Sansa appear less on promotional material than Jaime, Jon Snow, Robb, and Joffrey? (Daenerys is the exception, and let's be honest, it's because she has dragons.) I've seen _Theon Greyjoy_ on more promotional materials than Sansa. Theon Greyjoy! Why would you ever want to advertise to people that his character is on a show? This even happens a lot with _Gilmore Girls_. There are nearly as many promotional images for that show that feature Jared Padalecki as there are for Supernatural.

It's not malicious, I really don't believe that, but it can only happen so many times before you have to wonder if it's intentional. And if it is intentional, it's not _women _they're targeting these images and ads to. It's all the men who won't watch a show that doesn't advertise, even emphasize, that it's got a male character in it. TV execs, maybe rightfully, think that women will watch a show regardless of the gender of the character (that doesn't mean we wouldn't like more female characters, merely that we're more than okay with male ones). And they _know _that men don't watch shows with female leads. So why market to women when they'll watch it regardless? They target men, because men are the ones who they need to convince to watch a show about a female lead; and sometimes, that leads to sexualizing the woman in question, turning away women who'd rather watch Supernatural just because - hey - there _are_ no women to be talked down to and sexualized. It's backwards, I know, but it's easier than forcing yourself to like poorly written, male gaze-y characters on the other shows.

But don't think for a second we don't _want _a good female protagonist. We're just used to not having it.


----------



## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> *snip*



For the record, Kim Possible did so well that Disney brought it back for an extra season after the show ended due purely to fan demands. I'm willing to bet most of those fans were female. But Disney has always skewed towards a female audience, or at least Disney channel has. In fact, that's why Disney bought up Marvel and Star Wars. They wanted more IPs that appeal to boys because their own stuff was so girl-oriented.


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## Ophiucha

Yeah, the Disney channel was definitely more female-oriented than Nickelodeon was, at least when I was a kid. I have no idea what either of them are showing these days. Cartoon Network seemed to be more for boys, but then they'd occasionally have shows like Totally Spies, so who knows. But I can definitely see them buying a few more male-oriented things just to broaden their horizons (and for some more awesome rides at Disney World). Star Wars is definitely more popular with men, though I think Marvel is up in the air. Marvel seems more popular with women than DC, anyway. Not sure why... *_coughChrisEvanscoughRobertDowneyJrcoughcough_*


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## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> Marvel seems more popular with women than DC, anyway. Not sure why... *_coughChrisEvanscoughRobertDowneyJrcoughcough_*



To say nothing of Tom Hiddleston. Good lord, my sister will just not shut up about him. I don't get it. -_-

But yeah it's a little harder to tell now but historically, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network have generally skewed male while Disney skewed female. And Disney has been trying everything they can to get more boys on board from Jetix to acquiring Power Rangers to Disney XD, etc. But all the "for boys!" actions shows they came up with didn't have the desired result. Some were decent, some were blech, and overall they just couldn't beat CN at their own game. So they decided to try a different strategy: acquiring properties that already appeal to boys, like Marvel and Star Wars.


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## saellys

Mindfire said:


> Okay, full disclosure: I cheated. I subtly edited my statements to intentionally draw out a reaction from you so I could use it as an example. That was unfair and I apologize.



Apology accepted. I'm glad I wasn't just imagining it. 



Mindfire said:


> And you're also losing an opportunity to get someone to understand your views who might not otherwise if you just wrote them off as a simpleton.
> 
> Are you sure you're looking for someone receptive and not just someone who already agrees with you?



At this point, I'm looking for someone who won't just mindlessly play devil's advocate and regurgitate the same bogus points that I've responded to over and over and over. My screening process in public places thus far has boiled down to mentioning the Bechdel test (oh noes! I said it!) or some variant thereupon in a group of female friends and seeing whether any of their boyfriends jump in with "I don't see why that should be important." That has actually happened. We were all out at a bar having a good time, so I limited myself to a pithy, "You wouldn't because you've always been able to see yourself as the hero of any story throughout history," and then spoke of other things. 

If that means someone who fears a feminist Helter Skelter doesn't make it onto the Education Express, I can live with that because my own sanity will stay intact that much longer. Sorry if that's callous or counterproductive, but refraining from long-winded conversations like this out in the real world is becoming a form of self-care for me. 

A couple months ago I had a two-hour, indescribably frustrating discussion with my husband about rape culture, which strayed down all the rabbit trails you might expect, and terminated with my husband reassuring me that he agrees with everything I said. I asked why the eff we had just spent two hours talking about it, and he said he just wanted to give me some practice.

In short, he was being intentionally obtuse to make me jump through the hoops of explaining a concept he already understood. He was playing devil's advocate and repeating despicable opinions _for no reason_. This is actually something I encounter way more often than people who honestly don't understand. It's the real-world equivalent of an Internet troll saying "Don't feed the trolls!" when they finally get tired of poking people with virtual sticks. I told my husband I don't need practice from him; I have Mythic Scribes.  

Case in point: You don't actually believe that feminists are out to subdue men and erase them from their own stories or sexually objectify them or Other them, and yet we just spent two pages talking about it, culminating with the claim that it's still my responsibility to have a meaningful conversation with the people who honestly do believe that. The gist is that discussions like these are exhausting and go nowhere and if I waste all my time on them in the vain hope that the other person will be swayed by my patience and politeness, I won't be able to do anything productive on my own. 



Mindfire said:


> And if that shot was directed at me, I was only suggesting ways to communicate your views that might be more effective from a pragmatic standpoint. Whether that's feminism right or wrong is your call I suppose.
> 
> Or we could silence the radicals. MUHAHAHAHAHA! But on a serious note. I don't think it's a matter of louder per ce. But the constructive dialogue needs to take center stage and the radicals need to be marginalized. Please note that my statements may not apply to you specifically. I'm more referring to feminism I encounter in general.



Except _I do_ communicate my ideas that way. And more importantly, I can't do anything about feminism as a movement, only the way I practice it, which is already in line with what you recommended, so even bringing up feminism you encounter in general is not applicable to our interaction and does nothing but divert and slow the constructive dialogue we're supposed to be having. See why this is frustrating?


----------



## Feo Takahari

At risk of getting overly personal, Saellys, I can't help but notice that your approach to this entire thread has been in terms of "scoring points". Every time you get the chance to quote someone in such a way as to make them look like an idiot, you jump on it, to the point that when multiple people argue with you at once, you ignore anyone who can't easily be jumped on in favor of repeatedly singling out the one who can't (often misinterpreting their statements or even quoting them out of context in the process.) If you want to make this a "constructive dialogue", you need to do your part as well.


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## Jabrosky

Ophiucha said:


> But don't think for a second we don't _want _a good female protagonist.


Many women probably would appreciate that, and certainly those identifying as feminists would, but one thing I want to point out is that oppressed groups in general have an unnerving habit of internalizing and uncritically accepting the very stereotypes responsible for their oppression. For example, I've seen women endorse the very gender roles and stereotypes that have been used to support patriarchy. Sometimes they embody the stereotypes themselves, other times they cite them as a reason for disowning other women, but either way they help propagate them to other women's detriment. Mind you, I don't advocate letting men go off the hook, but you don't necessarily have to be a man in order to perpetuate gender inequality.

That said, men have a tendency to shoot themselves in the foot too. Lots of guys bitch and moan about how society supposedly treats women with kid gloves, yet they can't get through their thick troglodyte skulls that this kind of chivalry came about precisely because men decided women were too weak and sensitive to take care of themselves. Similarly, patriarchal society's equation of masculinity with dominance and toughness has produced millions of so-called "nice guys" whinging about how women ignore them in favor of "bad boys" or "thugs" or whatever. Frankly, we men are our own worst enemies.


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## Ophiucha

Yeah, I've definitely known one or two women like that in my life. My own mother borders on that, sometimes - she's a classic for calling any woman with even the slightest bit of authority the gendered slur of your choice. Really irritating. There is definitely a balance to be struck, and you sometimes get those characters that break through it, but many women do perpetuate patriarchal stereotypes. The question is really what is the role of media in helping break those stereotypes, and what role has media had in starting those stereotypes to begin with? Would women hate dumb blondes as much if the media didn't keep relying on that trope, reusing it over and over again? And it'd still be nice if there were more female writers and producers and executives to help navigate the tangled web; leaving men to do it just ends in... well, what we have now.

All that said, I'm not sure I've ever met a woman who _wouldn't _watch a show because it has a female lead, no matter how much internalized misogyny they've got going on, and I've known many who would actively give a show a try because of it. Which is why all the advertisements and posters that downplay the place of women in a show (or movie or book) always just sort of come across as clearly targeting men, since I've known _many_ who are turned off by female protagonists. My own husband - and you all must know by now that I wouldn't have married a sexist guy - is definitely a bit more critical of female characters than he is of male characters. It's just sort of... conditioning. And a result of the lack of range we get, I think. Again, how many of the female characters on TV are human love interests in a supernatural couple and/or FBI agents? Some exciting variants include 'also supernatural character in a supernatural couple (though the dude is always still supernatural as well)' and 'maybe a police officer instead of an FBI agent'.

I mean, if all male characters were time travelling immortals or sociopath consulting detectives, I bet we'd be a bit more critical of them too. Just look at _Elementary_, the American modern day adaptation of Sherlock. Obviously that is literally the same character, but there are very few people who like both that show and the BBC Sherlock adaptation. People don't want two interpretations of the same character - and a lot of female characters are basically exactly the same person, with different hair colours and maybe this one likes Emily Bronte more than Jane Austen. Which is about the same as you could say for the two different Sherlocks (for instance, the American one keeps bees; take that, Benedict Cumberbatch).


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## Mindfire

saellys said:


> *snip*



My point was that, in general, feminism seems to have devolved into a sort of group therapy session where women gather together to express their frustrations and exorcise their bitterness. Which is fine I guess, but all this talk of not needing men kind of misses the point of _yes, you do_. If you want a group of people to change their behavior, then you need to actively engage with those people. Thinking you're going to convince men that they need to do things differently by actively excluding them from the discussion is counterproductive at best. If your cause is going to gain any ground then yes, you need men. It's as simple as that. If you ignore them simply because you assume they won't listen to you or you're just too good to bother with them then, surprise, you're not going to make any progress. And yes, some people will simply not want to engage at first due to a knee-jerk reaction against what you're saying. Thank the radicals for that one. But you still have to engage if you want to get anything done. That's simply the hand you have been dealt. Is that fair? No. It's not. But it's the reality. You can't discuss women's problems with only women and somehow hope that through osmosis or whatever men will start magically giving a crap. Looking at this as an outsider, that, IMO, is feminism's greatest failure.


----------



## Mindfire

Jabrosky said:


> *snip*



I think it's important that we remember some people genuinely like the "classical" family arrangement where dad does certain things and mom does others. Just because this stereotype hurts or holds back some doesn't mean it isn't a valid choice for those who want it. Likewise there are guys who genuinely like traditionally masculine things and that's okay. The easiest way for this equality business to go completely crazy is if we start trying force people to like things they don't want simply in the name of correcting the balance. You know that whole "becoming what you hate" thing. For example, while there may be some sexism in toy marketing, forcing boys to play with barbies and forcing girls to play with nerf guns is not the answer. Just because someone makes a choice that lines up with a stereotype, doesn't mean that choice is invalid.


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## Ophiucha

Of course, Mindfire. Even though I am (obviously, like _lord _if you haven't figured this out by now) a feminist, I'm also ridiculously feminine, a housewife who enjoys cooking almost as much as writing, wears pretty vintage dresses and presses flowers, and I mean - my icon on this site has a bunch of pink and I use a heart to separate the links in my sig. It's about giving everybody a choice in how they express themselves and not shaming people for it if it's not the same as what we consider 'normal'. Has anyone seen those ridiculous Depends ads that are like "panty liners? look at these! they're pink and feminine!" *tosses aside* "now these are for men" and then they pan over to the exact same product but in _green _packaging because pink is for girls, yo.

And to gently ease this topic back towards fantasy, I think we still see this sort of thing occur in publishing. There are gendered covers, which make all books with female protagonists look... kind of the same? Like, they could be about completely different things but they're still going to have a woman from the chin or neck down holding or wearing some symbolic item from the story and very little else going on. If it's a 'deep' work, then you just get a zoom up of her face, probably with symbolically coloured lipstick or something. And as a fan of the romance genre, I must say, sometimes books get shoved in the romance section for no reason other than the fact that they have a female protagonist. I mean, some of them have no more romance than, like, the sixth _Harry Potter_ book but because it's a woman telling the story, it's just sort of defaulted to that section. And I've got opinions about how they separate fantasy, sometimes. If it's fantasy/romance, it often ends up in romance. If it's fantasy/YA, it often ends up in YA. Again, I doubt it is something they do with malicious intent, but browsing the nearest Barnes & Nobles makes fantasy look a lot more masculine than it really is because all of the _Vampire Diaries_ sorts of books get put somewhere else in the store.


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## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> snip



Yeah, the same thing happens when covers are whitewashed. For whatever reason, publishers seem to think it's more important for a cover to represent what they think people want to see rather than representing what the book actually is. A practice that benefits no one. Go figure.


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## saellys

Feo Takahari said:


> At risk of getting overly personal, Saellys, I can't help but notice that your approach to this entire thread has been in terms of "scoring points". Every time you get the chance to quote someone in such a way as to make them look like an idiot, you jump on it, to the point that when multiple people argue with you at once, you ignore anyone who can't easily be jumped on in favor of repeatedly singling out the one who can't (often misinterpreting their statements or even quoting them out of context in the process.) If you want to make this a "constructive dialogue", you need to do your part as well.



I'll try to keep an eye on this in the future. I do make an attempt to reply to anyone who addresses me or one of my points, but the honest truth is that I don't have time. I'm squeezing all this constructive dialogue into the two hours a day that my daughter is napping (or, like now, during a few stolen minutes when my husband is with her and I'm putting off something else I should be doing), and that's also my writing time. Any lack of response is not out of choice, but I will readily admit that "I have nothing to say to this" has been my rationale for omitting certain portions of someone else's quoted statements in the past.



Mindfire said:


> My point was that, in general, feminism seems to have devolved into a sort of group therapy session where women gather together to express their frustrations and exorcise their bitterness. Which is fine I guess, but all this talk of not needing men kind of misses the point of _yes, you do_. If you want a group of people to change their behavior, then you need to actively engage with those people. Thinking you're going to convince men that they need to do things differently by actively excluding them from the discussion is counterproductive at best. If your cause is going to gain any ground then yes, you need men. It's as simple as that. If you ignore them simply because you assume they won't listen to you or you're just too good to bother with them then, surprise, you're not going to make any progress. And yes, some people will simply not want to engage at first due to a knee-jerk reaction against what you're saying. Thank the radicals for that one. But you still have to engage if you want to get anything done. That's simply the hand you have been dealt. Is that fair? No. It's not. But it's the reality. You can't discuss women's problems with only women and somehow hope that through osmosis or whatever men will start magically giving a crap. Looking at this as an outsider, that, IMO, is feminism's greatest failure.



I have said absolutely nothing about not needing men. I also said nothing about ignoring them. I said that if they aren't receptive, I leave them for someone else in order to preserve my own sanity. I've tried to be as detailed and specific about this as I possibly can, so I really don't understand your insistence on projecting all of feminism's perceived problems onto me, using language that does not reflect what I've described, and make them my responsibility to fix. I'm not going to evangelize ALL the men even if they don't want to listen to anything I want to say. I'm going to do what I can.


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## Mindfire

saellys said:


> I have said absolutely nothing about not needing men. I also said nothing about ignoring them. I said that if they aren't receptive, I leave them for someone else in order to preserve my own sanity. I've tried to be as detailed and specific about this as I possibly can, so I really don't understand your insistence on projecting all of feminism's perceived problems onto me, using language that does not reflect what I've described, and make them my responsibility to fix. I'm not going to evangelize ALL the men even if they don't want to listen to anything I want to say. I'm going to do what I can.



I didn't mean you in particular. That's my diagnosis of feminism at large. Don't take offense. If I seem to be blaming you, it's only because you're the only feminist I've ever met (in a manner of speaking) who'll even make a token attempt at real dialogue, and I'm probably just letting off all the steam at once. Apologies for the collateral damage.


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## Zero Angel

I'm not sure I agree with your diagnosis of feminism as a whole, Mindfire; instead, I think that there are two types of feminists: 1) the one that you mentioned, which I hope are an outspoken minority, and (2) feminists that want equality without oppression/retribution to men.

Men, I think, especially have a tendency of hearing "feminist" and thinking the first of the two. On the other hand, many in the second group would probably not self-identify as feminists, and really, anyone that grew up on Disney should fall in the second group, including me.


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## Mindfire

Zero Angel said:


> I'm not sure I agree with your diagnosis of feminism as a whole, Mindfire; instead, I think that there are two types of feminists: 1) the one that you mentioned, which I hope are an outspoken minority, and (2) feminists that want equality without oppression/retribution to men.
> 
> Men, I think, especially have a tendency of hearing "feminist" and thinking the first of the two. On the other hand, many in the second group would probably not self-identify as feminists, and really, anyone that grew up on Disney should fall in the second group, including me.



Feminists who want "revenge" are definitely the minority, usually fringe radical groups. But my "diagnosis" wasn't about that. It was about how self-identified feminists in general tend to just complain about things with each other instead of actually engaging men in the conversation. Some go so far as to actively exclude men from the conversation, which I think is counterproductive. Those that do this have some overlap with the "revenge" group, but the two are still distinct. The "exclusionists" are generally a larger sect than the "retributionists".


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## Mindfire

Now for something entirely different. Where exactly does appreciation of the female form or even sexual attraction cross the line into objectification? I think it's easy to make the issue a false dichotomy between shameless objectification and "no sex or even sexual thoughts EVAR!", but there's got to be a middle ground here somewhere. I'm particularly interested in responses from female members.


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## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> It was about how self-identified feminists in general tend to just complain about things with each other instead of actually engaging men in the conversation. Some go so far as to actively exclude men from the conversation, which I think is counterproductive. Those that do this have some overlap with the "revenge" group, but the two are still distinct. The "exclusionists" are generally a larger sect than the "retributionists".



Having spent time with many self-identified feminists over the year, I still think this is a minority. Most of those I've known are quite the opposite, and when you consider the number of people in the general population who would identify themselves are feminist, I think it is a small minority that you're talking about.


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## Zero Angel

Yeah, my mom was a feminist of the type that likes to complain without motivation and I grew up my whole life hearing her complain about men. 

On the other hand, most people complain about what bothers them without trying to change it. Look at almost every job ever. There's that old joke:
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a club for that: it's called EVERYBODY. We meet at the bar​
Where is the line drawn for most people on what they can tolerate or even enjoy reading? I mean, I can tolerate women being portrayed in lesser roles or not having much proactive qualities (unless they're the protagonist!), but I cannot read something that is actively misogynistic (i.e. abuse, unwilling domination, and R).

Note: Remember to abbreviate things so the thread doesn't get shut down for violating the almighty Google search term algorithms.


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## saellys

It varies on a case-by-case basis, of course. Also, a female character can be objectified (literally, "treated as an object") without being sexualized, most commonly if she is the only female character in a given work and is robbed of agency. It's that much more egregious if she also only exists for a) the sexual gratification of the men around her, and b) the arousal of readers. 

For those of you who can stomach Anita Sarkeesian, her latest "Tropes vs. Women" video is about damsels in distress in video games, and treads some of this ground as well.


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## Mythopoet

As a new female member of this community, I guess I'll jump into the conversation. Just to give myself a bit of a background in this discussion, I'm a wife and mom of 5, a Catholic and I'm not going to hide the fact that I think the feminist movement (NOT feminists as individuals) is evil and damaging to society. I'm not going to apologize for that belief. If you want to argue with me about it you can message me.



Mindfire said:


> Now for something entirely different. Where exactly does appreciation of the female form or even sexual attraction cross the line into objectification? I think it's easy to make the issue a false dichotomy between shameless objectification and "no sex or even sexual thoughts EVAR!", but there's got to be a middle ground here somewhere. I'm particularly interested in responses from female members.



The problem is that there isn't just one line to cross. One of the lines is intent. Did the writer intend to objectify or not? Then there is the question of how the depiction in question is implemented. That's really a case by case question. Furthermore, I would argue that objectification isn't necessarily about sexuality. In my opinion casual sex objectifies all players, both men and women. But sex is certainly not the only context within which a person can be objectified. I think the real question when determining objectification is whether or not a person's human nature and in particular their free will is being in any way subverted or suppressed.


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## saellys

A writer can objectify a character without intending to. There's a link to an article about that back on page 42; the gist is that we've all been absorbing inaccurate and harmful narratives for so long that it's really, really hard to write anything else. Intent, or lack thereof, doesn't change the fact that objectification happens and is harmful.


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## Jabrosky

I'm just going to put her on my ignore list.


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## saellys

^ Harsh. She's contributing to the conversation, actually, even if she does think I'm destroying the fabric of society.


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## Jabrosky

saellys said:


> ^ Harsh. She's contributing to the conversation, actually, even if she does think I'm destroying the fabric of society.


I can only tolerate so much crazy.


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## saellys

Welcome to MS, Mythopoet! (No but seriously please stick around.)


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## Steerpike

Jabrosky, let's not get into personal name calling. You've been on the forums long enough to know better. A generalized statement about a social movement that specifically avoids statements about individuals does not warrant a bunch of insults directed back at a specific person.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Ok. So as some of you have undoubtedly noticed, this thread derailed with a personal insult. Personal insults are not tolerated.

Whether or not you agree with, or have disdain for a member's perspective, is within your prerogative. However, the discussion must not be taken to a personal level like we saw above. Mythic Scribes is a community that fosters tolerance for differing viewpoints. 

Please return to the conversation in a constructive manner and thank you to those members who remained on point and focused without resorting to degradation of another member or inciting behavior.


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## Ophiucha

saellys said:


> It varies on a case-by-case basis, of course. Also, a female character can be objectified (literally, "treated as an object") without being sexualized, most commonly if she is the only female character in a given work and is robbed of agency. It's that much more egregious if she also only exists for a) the sexual gratification of the men around her, and b) the arousal of readers.
> 
> For those of you who can stomach Anita Sarkeesian, her latest "Tropes vs. Women" video is about damsels in distress in video games, and treads some of this ground as well.



I saw that video - I don't tend to like her method of delivery, but I think her bringing up the wife/daughter kill/damsel dichotomy was pretty interesting, particularly in regards to your comment above about objectification. The daughters are often non-sexually objectified, prizes to be won or item to be stolen back, but are usually too young to be sexualized (and even if they are sexy and older, the protagonist does not sexualize them since he is her father).

One thing it does bring up is how rare it is to have a female character in a story with a male protagonist who exists entirely out of the context of the male characters' immediate family (or would-be family). Female characters are love interests, mothers, daughters, or sisters. It's really rare for there to be a female character who has a platonic, non-familial relationship with any of the male characters, and the ones that do are usually very blatantly sexualized, playing the role of the 'hooker with a heart of gold' or similar, openly and purposely sexual character. (Too sexual for them to be a suitable love interest, one might say.)

Female characters who don't 'belong' to the male protagonist, be it through love or blood, are rare. And regardless of whether or not they are sexy, they are still made into objects by their relationship to the protagonist. They're not "Mary Anne", they're "Billy's sister" or "John's wife".


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## Mythopoet

saellys said:


> She's contributing to the conversation, actually, even if she does think I'm destroying the fabric of society.



I don't think any such thing about you. I don't know you. I think that about the organized movement called feminism. But again, I didn't intend to debate my personal beliefs here (unless it becomes "on topic") and I'd be more than happy to discuss my reasons with anyone who wants to privately. I merely meant to state clearly where I am coming from as I enter the discussion.

I don't make judgements about people I don't know. (I find the best way to go through life is to give everyone the benefit of the doubt until there are strong reasons for not doing so.) I'd just as soon be ignored by someone who judges me based on so little.


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## Mythopoet

Back on topic: I'd be interested in specific examples where you all feel women are being objectified in fantasy. I'm not sure that I've come across any in my own reading.


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## Steerpike

Mythopoet said:


> Back on topic: I'd be interested in specific examples where you all feel women are being objectified in fantasy. I'm not sure that I've come across any in my own reading.



You could always read the Gor novels from the 80s


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## Feo Takahari

Mythopoet said:


> I don't think any such thing about you. I don't know you. I think that about the organized movement called feminism. But again, I didn't intend to debate my personal beliefs here (unless it becomes "on topic") and I'd be more than happy to discuss my reasons with anyone who wants to privately. I merely meant to state clearly where I am coming from as I enter the discussion.
> 
> I don't make judgements about people I don't know. (I find the best way to go through life is to give everyone the benefit of the doubt until there are strong reasons for not doing so.) I'd just as soon be ignored by someone who judges me based on so little.



If you said "Libertarians are destroying the fabric of society," you couldn't just leave it at that--we'd all go "WTF?" and demand that you explain. Don't leave us hanging here.

(I don't typically call myself a feminist, but I'm close enough to the movement to be absolutely baffled.)


----------



## Feo Takahari

On the objectification issue: I think a lot of the problem today is with what we lack, not what we have. As an example, suppose the most important female character in a story is a close compatriot of the hero. She has an interesting personality, has clear goals she works towards, and helps to defeat some of the bad guys. In and of herself, this character is probably fine. But when most female characters in a certain genre or medium are no more relevant than her--in particular, when there aren't that many women who get to be "heroines" in the same way the guys get to be "heroes"--then the genre or medium can be said to be lacking, as a whole. (This varies a lot from genre to genre--fantasy's actually getting pretty good about allowing women to take a central role.)


----------



## Ophiucha

Steerpike said:


> You could always read the Gor novels from the 80s



I'm embarrassed to say how much I liked the first couple of those in high school. I even had, like, a nice box set. Genuinely awful, probably the worst thing I ever liked as a teenager and I liked _Eragon _and Simple Plan.

@Mytho, I think it'd be easier to list the women I _didn't_ feel like were being objectified than the ones I did. Every female comic book character ever would be a good place to start - even Diana, who is basically an Amazon strawman feminist, spends a lot of time being grabbed by her enemies and contorting into poses that show off more of her assets. The vast majority of Captain Kirk's one-off love interests in _Star Trek_. Possibly every female vampire ever written, dating back at least as far back as _Carmilla_. While I think George R. R. Martin often avoids these pitfalls in his books, the writers of the TV show _Game of Thrones_ often include extra sex scenes and nude scenes that exclusively show women naked and not their male co-stars, scenes that were not in the book. There was also a controversy surrounding a Wildling woman being clean-shaven in her nude scene, despite the actress's desire to wear a merkin as a 'wild woman' would have no reason to shave down there. The entire 'Hot Scientist' stereotype, which basically says "yeah, she's intelligent, but we're only writing her in so she can take down her pony tail and remove her glasses seductively". For bonus points, every portrayal of a Romani woman where she isn't meant to be evil. Some of the ones where she's meant to be evil, too. The previously discussed 'damsel in distress' trope, which turns women into prizes to be won. There are genuinely too many examples to name.

I have nothing against attractive female characters, but when you have entire blogs dedicated to the nonsensically sexualized armour women get in comics and video games, or the contortionist poses they're in on the cover of comic books, it's pretty obvious that these characters aren't being drawn for other women to emulate, enjoy, and be empowered by. They're drawn and written for men who presumably haven't figured out yet that you can just watch 'em in even less clothing on the internet.


----------



## Steerpike

As an aside, Opiucha, you ever see the show Lost Girl? I think Bo and Kenzi are both well-done in terms of how their characters are portrayed.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Steerpike said:


> As an aside, Opiucha, you ever see the show Lost Girl? I think Bo and Kenzi are both well-done in terms of how their characters are portrayed.



I find it amusing that when not used as villains, succubi are often among the _least_ sexually objectified women in fiction. Because they're defined around being actively sexual, they can't just be passive trophies for the male characters to win.


----------



## Steerpike

Feo Takahari said:


> I find it amusing that when not used as villains, succubi are often among the _least_ sexually objectified women in fiction. Because they're defined around being actively sexual, they can't just be passive trophies for the male characters to win.



With a succubus, I thought it likely there would be objectification or shaming (or, more probably, both). Lost Girl manages to avoid both.

Kenzi is my favorite character, though. She's smart, tough, and doesn't have all the magical advantages everyone else has.


----------



## Mythopoet

I guess I'm confused. What do people mean when they talk about female characters being objectified? From some of the comments above, it sounds like if every female character doesn't have as big a role in a story as a male character or if somehow their character doesn't live up to some personal ideal of what a woman should be, that means she's being objectified. I see people often (in many other places around the internet) complaining whenever a female character isn't the main character. It almost seems as if some people are not satisfied unless any female character in a story should overshadow any male character. 

Now, where I'm coming from, if the greater quantity of heroes is due to industry or societal pressure to keep male characters in the forefront, that's a problem. However, if it really comes down to the individual choices of authors, for instance if an author simply invents a male character that the author wants to tell a story about and all the other characters (including women) are secondary to that character's story, then there's nothing wrong with that. Readers pressuring authors to portray female protagonists, if that is not what the author wants to do, is just as bad as industry or society doing so. If readers prefer female to male protagonists, they should refrain from buying books with male protagonists.


----------



## Zero Angel

Mythopoet said:


> I guess I'm confused. What do people mean when they talk about female characters being objectified? From some of the comments above, it sounds like if every female character doesn't have as big a role in a story as a male character or if somehow their character doesn't live up to some personal ideal of what a woman should be, that means she's being objectified. I see people often (in many other places around the internet) complaining whenever a female character isn't the main character. It almost seems as if some people are not satisfied unless any female character in a story should overshadow any male character.



I believe most people are going with the definition, "Degrade to the status of an object."

If you want to go a little further, it seems the general consensus is that "objects" are characters that lack or appear to lack agency, i.e. a will, when told from an omniscient perspective or that character's perspective, or when other characters and/or the author regularly treat those characters as though they are objects. 

It seems that you may be referring to what Mindfire brought up a few pages ago when we started talking about the feminists people think of when they hear the word "feminists".


----------



## Devor

Mythopoet said:


> I guess I'm confused. What do people mean when they talk about female characters being objectified?



I'm going to drop the word "objectified" just because I don't like its origins in Communism and Marx's portrayal of women.  It probably doesn't matter.

But in general, what people are upset about is the following:

 - Women have only a few predictable archetypes which they fall into in fantasy stories, like the damsel in distress or the "warrior woman," and often aren't included as well-rounded characters.  For me, I completely agree that this is a problem that we need to work on, but I disagree that it's the job of every last author to set new boundaries for female characters.

 - Women characters often don't have _agency_, meaning that their actions don't really drive much of the plot.  This, to me, is an easy enough problem for most authors to fix, so I fully support campaigning for authors to give female characters have more agency.  That seems like the easiest issue to gain buy-in on to me and to make a big impact.

 - Women are seldom protagonists.  To me, novels are written by one person, so I don't see a point in complaining that male authors write too much about male characters.

 - The publishing industry doesn't buy or market books by female authors or with female protagonists as much as they do those by male authors or male protagonists.  I'm not really up to date about how true this is, whether it's out of proportion to the male/female audience, or whether there are alternate explanations - I presume it's at least true enough to complain about.  However, when I hear similar arguments about industries I know more about, I find the complaints often show a poor understanding of the industry.  But as authors we can't really do much about what the publishers are up to, anyways.

 - Women are often sexualized.  Even strong female protagonists feature lengthy descriptions of their breasts.  As a Catholic, I've seen this problem a lot, too.


----------



## saellys

Thanks for the excellent summary, Devor.


----------



## glutton

Feo Takahari said:


> On the objectification issue: I think a lot of the problem today is with what we lack, not what we have. As an example, suppose the most important female character in a story is a close compatriot of the hero. She has an interesting personality, has clear goals she works towards, and helps to defeat some of the bad guys. In and of herself, this character is probably fine. But when most female characters in a certain genre or medium are no more relevant than her--in particular, when there aren't that many women who get to be "heroines" in the same way the guys get to be "heroes"--then the genre or medium can be said to be lacking, as a whole. (This varies a lot from genre to genre--fantasy's actually getting pretty good about allowing women to take a central role.)



I really like this post, for obvious reasons.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Ophiucha said:


> I have nothing against attractive female characters, but when you have entire blogs dedicated to the nonsensically sexualized armour women get in comics and video games, or the contortionist poses they're in on the cover of comic books, it's pretty obvious that these characters aren't being drawn for other women to emulate, enjoy, and be empowered by. They're drawn and written for men who presumably haven't figured out yet that you can just watch 'em in even less clothing on the internet.



And, for the funny visual argument about female armor in video games...

College Humor: Female Armor Sucks


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Seriously, though, while it's great to have a succubus as an empowered woman (I like that), they're SUPPOSED to be sexy.  It's their stock in trade.  It's like saying to a swordswoman, "Get out there and fight, but no weapons for you."  A succubus, and conversely an incubus, feeds on intimate energy.  I'm not saying they should be objectified, but I also don't think that a woman, or a man, who is seen as attractive or amorously aggressive/interesting is automatically objectified.  I have one in my WIP, and I would dare anyone who reads her to say she's objectified, even though she works as an exotic dancer.  Girl's gotta eat.


----------



## LadyCass

Interesting discussion. I had a few females in my mind to bring to the table but after reading the qualifications what the character couldn't do or be they were quickly canceled out. But I got to thinking.... how many male characters are that great of a strong character? How many male leads have agency? Agency and protagonist have everything to do with style of writing. If the writer is story driven the characters will suffer, male or female. So are we saying there are few stories that are character driven that are female?
I love Morgan from Nine Kingdoms series, love Mercy from the Mercedes Thompson series, also love that in the Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner the third book changes from a male lead to focusing on a female lead.
I don't know.... seems a bit over board to say there aren't any good female characters. I think there are a lot of weakly written characters male and female out there. Is the percentage higher for woman? Perhaps. I do think that has changed a lot in the past century. Many top selling media have female leads lately, fantasy and other genre.
I'm all for women being represented fairly but there should be credit given to how that has been changing and evolving tons over the past years.
As a female writer and reader and consumer... I feel women are represented. Some of us are reliant on our looks, some our dumb, some do kick ass, some do save the day. Having all of that makes it realistic to me. 
I don't know... maybe I'm missing the point. And as far as sex selling, it sells for men too. The male lead is more appealing if he has a romantic story line. Romance sells, our society has simply forgotten romance and replaced it with sex.


----------



## saellys

I probably have the most extreme opinions in this thread, but nowhere did I (or anyone else, for that matter) say there aren't any good female characters. I certainly recognize and applaud the improvements that have happened--maybe not in the past century, but definitely in the last couple of decades. Heck, I finally finished _The Deed of Paksenarrion_ (which has been touted as a great example in this and other threads), and that was written twenty-five years ago. Elizabeth Moon did then what many people wish more authors would do now. 

Being a "story-driven" author does not mean characters have to be weakly written. Characters with agency influence a story. A writer who creates characters, male or female, with no agency weakens their own story.


----------



## Chessie

Devor said:


> I'm going to drop the word "objectified" just because I don't like its origins in Communism and Marx's portrayal of women.  It probably doesn't matter.
> 
> But in general, what people are upset about is the following:
> 
> - Women have only a few predictable archetypes which they fall into in fantasy stories, like the damsel in distress or the "warrior woman," and often aren't included as well-rounded characters.  For me, I completely agree that this is a problem that we need to work on, but I disagree that it's the job of every last author to set new boundaries for female characters.
> 
> - Women characters often don't have _agency_, meaning that their actions don't really drive much of the plot.  This, to me, is an easy enough problem for most authors to fix, so I fully support campaigning for authors to give female characters have more agency.  That seems like the easiest issue to gain buy-in on to me and to make a big impact.
> 
> - Women are seldom protagonists.  To me, novels are written by one person, so I don't see a point in complaining that male authors write too much about male characters.
> 
> - The publishing industry doesn't buy or market books by female authors or with female protagonists as much as they do those by male authors or male protagonists.  I'm not really up to date about how true this is, whether it's out of proportion to the male/female audience, or whether there are alternate explanations - I presume it's at least true enough to complain about.  However, when I hear similar arguments about industries I know more about, I find the complaints often show a poor understanding of the industry.  But as authors we can't really do much about what the publishers are up to, anyways.
> 
> - Women are often sexualized.  Even strong female protagonists feature lengthy descriptions of their breasts.  As a Catholic, I've seen this problem a lot, too.



I like this response. In the last couple fantasy books I've read, one of my main issues has been the lack of non-cliched females. In one of the books, a young teen was the protagonist and she behaved like the 13 yr old that she was. Slowly, through the course of 5 books, she came out of her shell. In book 3, I almost had it with her stupidity because by then, come now author, can I see her be stronger now? 

In other stories, women seem to use their sexuality a lot in order to get ahead. As a woman, this irritates me. Women have brains and strong personalities too, it would be nice to see more of it in modern literature. If anyone has examples, I'd welcome the chance to look at them. 

I don't mind reading sexy scenes either so long as they have a point in driving the story forward. Just my opinion, but women these days use sexuality to get ahead a lot less than they are portrayed to by media.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

One thing that's been fun for me is playing a female role in Steerpike's Dragon's Egg game. I originally planned to play a guy, but came up with a Joan-of-Arcish barbarian woman that seemed to fit into the world of the RPG. What's fun about it is I try to play her as a powerful warrior, but add a feminine side that goes with her whole I'll-become-a-Valkyrie-when-I'm-dead theme. Kindness and compassion are the feminine touch to this character who would otherwise be like a man but wearing a dress.

The best compliment I got was from a woman playing the game who felt my character was believable as a woman.


			
				Nihal said:
			
		

> Baldhart
> 
> The lovely fool! She's always trying to empathize with everyone, gentle, sensitive. She tries to look after the group, and she's strong, really strong. You know you can count on her to save your ass. You can say she's trying her best to keep the group together, yet she got some internal conflicts to solve. While sometimes I feel like she's a young girl trapped in big barbarian body, being almost frail, it's not the whole truth. She's wise in her own way and her ominous dialogues with Nissa can be a little disheartening. You're doing a good work with her, for she's also believable as a woman. Don't die too soon!


Since I have three daughters, I think my goal is to have powerful female MCs that aren't objectified.


----------



## Zero Angel

Has anybody seen the latest controversy with the SFWA bulletin? SFWA appears to have stepped in it big-time. 

I didn't find the original articles, but here is a reaction which includes what they're reacting to:
Dear SFWA


----------



## Feo Takahari

I found a scan of what the authors in question said about the controversy. (It's at the bottom of a page of very heavy criticism, so skip over that if you just want to get to the scan.)

I'm most inclined to sympathize with this response to their response.

Edit: Oh dear God, Resnick's actually going onto blogs to complain in the comments about being criticized. Think Fandom Wank covers this kind of rubbish?


----------



## Devor

Stepped in it seems right.  It doesn't look like they're responding well, which is usually the part that's worse than whatever it was they originally posted.

I would just say, without seeing the offending piece, that in my limited experience I think they would probably have a better chance changing the organization by staying than by leaving.


----------



## saellys

I could play "I said a bunch of awful crap and got called out for it" bingo with this.


----------



## Steerpike

Political correctness can certainly be akin to censorship or thought control when the intent is to intimidate, stifle, or harass. That happens quite a bit on the internet, given the form and tenor of many of the reactions of those advocating political correctness. The idea is to make the other side nervous or afraid of expressing their viewpoint. Simply hiding behind "we're not stopping you from saying it" is disingenuous. If the government imposed a ten year prison sentence (to use an extreme example) on anyone who spoke against tax policy, and then said "oh, we're not stopping you from speaking, this is just a consequence of your speech," no one would fall for it. But when politically-correct types take to the internet to pillory or denigrate people they don't like, and to intimidate those who might express other viewpoints, then suddenly it's just a natural consequence of the speech and no big deal. It's hypocrisy, and most PC-types I've come across are nothing if not hypocrites.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Steerpike said:


> Political correctness can certainly be akin to censorship or thought control when the intent is to intimidate, stifle, or harass. That happens quite a bit on the internet, given the form and tenor of many of the reactions of those advocating political correctness. The idea is to make the other side nervous or afraid of expressing their viewpoint. Simply hiding behind "we're not stopping you from saying it" is disingenuous. If the government imposed a ten year prison sentence (to use an extreme example) on anyone who spoke against tax policy, and then said "oh, we're not stopping you from speaking, this is just a consequence of your speech," no one would fall for it. But when politically-correct types take to the internet to pillory or denigrate people they don't like, and to intimidate those who might express other viewpoints, then suddenly it's just a natural consequence of the speech and no big deal. It's hypocrisy, and most PC-types I've come across are nothing if not hypocrites.



To put it bluntly, most of the intimidation I've seen is from people _accusing other people of intimidation_. That is to say, person A says something offensive, person B calls it offensive, person A starts accusing B of trying to silence him/her and rallies whatever forces he/she possesses to make mass threats against person B.


----------



## Devor

Feo Takahari said:


> To put it bluntly, most of the intimidation I've seen is from people _accusing other people of intimidation_. That is to say, person A says something offensive, person B calls it offensive, person A starts accusing B of trying to silence him/her and rallies whatever forces he/she possesses to make mass threats against person B.



This happens.  There's no doubt about it.  But I think accusing people of saying something offensive can be pretty intimidating.  There are many, many people who hold opinions they're afraid to express - what is that if not censorship?  Maybe it's censorship we agree sometimes agree with?

I've seen the following scenarios a lot:

 - People get offended because person A said something genuinely offensive.

 - People get offended because person A said something similar to person B, even though person B was offensive about it and person A was not.

 - People get offended because person A said something vague or nuanced, and they interpreted an offensive "hidden meaning" which may or may not have been there.

 - People get _gleeful_ about the chance of _sounding_ angry because person A said something close enough to being offensive that they can use it to attack the people or opinions they don't like.

 - People let out their mean or spiteful sides because Person A said something offensive or almost offensive, giving them what they see as an excuse.

Many of those scenarios are more about silencing or intimidating their opponents than they are about expressing a viewpoint.  Mostly, I don't think people get offended that easily.  But we often like to see themselves as protecting people who do.

So what's the point of all that?  Mostly, that the _tone_ of many of these conversations is usually more stressful, and less effective, than it's worth.  There's a fine line between many of these scenarios, and different people may see the same situation as any one of them.

In sales, they say you're generally more convincing when your tone is _one step_ away from that of the person you're talking to.  And honestly, while some things are clearly good or bad, the degree to which they're good and bad is far more subjective than we like to admit.  And there's always so many unknowns.  So most of the time it probably does everybody good to tone it down.

I don't mean any of this as specific to this conversation or to one side or another.  I'm quickly thinking of many, many examples from topics serious and silly.  Really I think the tone of this conversation has mostly improved the longer it's continued.


----------



## Ophiucha

Mm, yeah, I see that a lot. A (race, instead of sex) issue came up in that weird webcomic - Homestuck? - a few months ago, around the holidays. The creator made a joke at the expense of the fans who care about racism, those fans got upset with him, the hardcore Homestuck fans started sending _those _fans death threats for besmirching the good name of [dude who writes Homestuck], and then the creator came out and said "I welcomed the initial criticism and have changed the offending line, my apologies, also you're all crazy and need to calm down", and in response those same fans continued attacking the first set because they 'made [dude] censor himself', and this went on for _weeks_. I had many friends in the fandom - on both sides of the argument - and even completely uninterested in Homestuck I was exposed to the largest internet fight I've seen in my many years online. It was pretty... wow. Just, wow.

There are definitely right and wrong ways to give criticism, there are right and wrong ways to take criticism (and respond to it regardless of whether or not you intend to change it), and there are _definitely _right and wrong ways to handle criticism of people you like. People are really bad about that last one, and it just forces things to escalate exponentially from "hey that line in episode 2 had some unfortunate implications about feminine women" to "how dare you call [so-and-so] a sexist? feminism is ruining this fandom". It's really irritating, but hey, that's the internet for you. (Unless it's not online, then it just risks escalating even further as I try to resist the urge to slap the guy.)

Incidentally, I think it's definitely important to emphasize that I never assume the writer of a show/movie/book/game is sexist just because his (or her) work has sexist things in it, or even is pretty sexist overall. They could be, but I'll wait 'til I see them interviewed or read their Twitter before making that call.


----------



## saellys

Steerpike said:


> The idea is to make the other side nervous or afraid of expressing their viewpoint.



The idea, in my experience, is to make the person aware of a problematic statement. In a huge number of the instances I've witnessed, the person who makes the initial statement is genuinely unaware of how offensive it is, and/or has never given it any thought. Generally the people who point these things out just want the person to know, and think about it in the future.

For instance, the word "gay" gets bandied about in a mildly negative sense quite a lot in our culture. "You missed the bus and were ten minutes late for work? That's gay!" If someone hears this and requests that the first speaker not use a person's sexual orientation as a casual insult or term of dismay, the first speaker could squeeze this under the umbrella of censorship. It's actually a plea for respect, and the cumulative effect of a society that uses language like this in daily conversation is a factor that warrants consideration. There is more nuance here than one person's inalienable right to say whatever they want. 

There was a time, I'm told, when thinking before you spoke was a valued life skill. If that's true and not just false nostalgia, I'd love to return to it.


----------



## Steerpike

saellys said:


> The idea, in my experience, is to make the person aware of a problematic statement.



That is the goal a lot of people have, but there is often a vocal minority in these circumstances who want to shut the speech down and make sure no one else dares to engage in it. It is a chilling effect on speech as a result of bullying and/or hateful commentary by the very people who often claim to be the most tolerant. It is particularly prevalent against Christian religious speech in the U.S., since that is one group of people that some on the left feel it is OK to discriminate against or shut down by any means possible.

It's not the goal of everyone, but the general statement that the reactions against such speech never amount to attempts at censorship, thought control, intimidation, and the like is false.


----------



## saellys

Steerpike said:


> That is the goal a lot of people have, but there is often a vocal minority in these circumstances who want to shut the speech down and make sure no one else dares to engage in it. It is a chilling effect on speech as a result of bullying and/or hateful commentary by the very people who often claim to be the most tolerant. It is particularly prevalent against Christian religious speech in the U.S., since that is one group of people that some on the left feel it is OK to discriminate against or shut down by any means possible.
> 
> It's not the goal of everyone, but the general statement that the reactions against such speech never amount to attempts at censorship, thought control, intimidation, and the like is false.



I didn't see anyone here say that reactions against such speech never amounts to those attempts. Again, in my experience, the instances in which people react badly to these observations and claim that they are being persecuted, censored, and intimidated far outnumber the instances in which the observations are presented in such a way as to actually warrant such claims. 

I'm going to sidestep discussing the massive persecution complex I encountered while I was active in various Protestant churches several years ago, and get back to Resnick and Malzberg crying "Nazi!" when people pointed out that talking about how great a female editor looked when she was young is a pretty stupid way to conduct themselves.


----------



## Mindfire

Honesty is better than political correctness. And that's all I have to say about that.

As for Resnick and Malzberg, I'm still wondering how they figured discussing the looks of these female editors was in any way relevant to the main thrust of the article. That is, EDITING.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> Honesty is better than political correctness. And that's all I have to say about that.
> 
> As for Resnick and Malzberg, I'm still wondering how they figured discussing the looks of these female editors was in any way relevant to the main thrust of the article. That is, EDITING.



If there's one thing I hate about the term "politically correct", it's the assumption inherent in it that being politically correct is different from being actually correct. If someone says, I dunno, "black people are raping our women" or something like that, and if black people aren't, by and large, "raping our women", he's not just being politically incorrect, he's being incorrect.

P.S. On the whole Christianity thing: I've noticed that the people who model Christianity as under attack tend to have a model of a specific attacker (e.g. atheists or homosexuals.) That attacker is typically something they themselves model as something Christianity needs to attack, with the goal of removing or minimizing its ability to influence social discourse. I think this entire paradigm is missing the point--culture wars aren't actual wars, and if you don't model someone as your enemy, you can have a rational discussion without the need for a "fight."

P.P.S. Is it just me, or is the moderation team, on average (albeit not in every case), noticeably more socially conservative than the average poster? I'm not accusing bias or anything--if you were biased, Saellys would have been banned months ago--it's just something that surprises me.


----------



## Mindfire

Don't mods by necessity have to be conservative? You know, to keep the peace and whatnot?


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> Don't mods by necessity have to be conservative? You know, to keep the peace and whatnot?



Not really. One could argue that mods need to be _indifferent_, but that's different from specifically expressing conservative ideas. (And I don't think that's necessary, either. What mods have a special obligation to do is to set a good example for posters. That means they can't belittle or humiliate posters for having different views, but if the posters can speak their minds about controversial topics, the mods can do so as well.)

P.S. Totally off-topic, but I'm starting to recognize that overall, the moderation here is much, _much_ less trigger-happy than at the site I got banned from*. People are allowed to speak their minds unless they start personally insulting other posters, threads are allowed to proceed so long as they don't go off-topic**, and even temp-bans are rarely handed out. It's refreshing.

* I won't speak its name, because specifically bringing in drama from another site is really, _really_ bad form.

** Well, unless they get into the really ugly stuff, but that's to be expected. I can still discuss more topics here than on many writing sites.


----------



## Devor

Feo Takahari said:


> P.S. On the whole Christianity thing....



Let's not get political.




> P.P.S. Is it just me, or is the moderation team, on average (albeit not in every case), noticeably more socially conservative than the average poster? I'm not accusing bias or anything--if you were biased, Saellys would have been banned months ago--it's just something that surprises me.



If by "Conservative," you mean "leaning right in American politics," I really don't think so.  By the number of mods, not at all; by post count of the different moderators, it's pretty diverse, but maybe it looks that way compared to the rest of the internet.  But I'm not even sure where some people stand, including Black Dragon.

If by "Conservative," you mean "erring on the side of....," would "conservative" be less moderation or more?  I think we try to err on the side of a civil community.  I think the attitude is just to be in the posts setting a good tone.


----------



## saellys

Mindfire said:


> Honesty is better than political correctness. And that's all I have to say about that.



Outwardly displaying a modicum of respect for the other human beings with whom you share this planet, regardless of what you actually feel about them, is better than honesty.


----------



## Mindfire

saellys said:


> Outwardly displaying a modicum of respect for the other human beings with whom you share this planet, regardless of what you actually feel about them, is better than honesty.



Honesty and respect are not mutually exclusive. I had a lengthy dialogue in PMs with Feo about our diametrically opposed viewpoints on numerous issues. Both of us were honest about our opinions, and for my part I felt the tone was consistently respectful.


----------



## Zero Angel

saellys said:


> There was a time, I'm told, when thinking before you spoke was a valued life skill. If that's true and not just false nostalgia, I'd love to return to it.



Great phrase, "false nostalgia", and yes, that is what that was. 



saellys said:


> Outwardly displaying a modicum of respect for the other human beings with whom you share this planet, regardless of what you actually feel about them, is better than honesty.



Completely disagree with you here, saellys. First, a modicum of respect is hardly no respect at all, but many times people don't even deserve that. If someone is a waste of life and potential, then you're doing them a disservice to be respectful towards them. I don't believe honesty is the best policy, and I'm sure there are times when silence is golden, but you don't need to give respect to everyone in the world, just people that you feel deserve it. On the other hand, you should not be actively disrespectful towards people unless they deserve it also. 

I grew up rather blunt, but frequently I found myself in situations where many were inwardly seething and refusing to say anything out of respect or social mores or whatever, so I would say what needed to be said. 

Also, respect is really in the eye of the beholder. I imagine that the two SFWA people in question thought they were being respectful of the female editor in question that looked good in a bathing suit.


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## Ophiucha

Very true. S_h_ort of defining respect by each person's specifications and giving out a worksheet to every person you could ever talk to, I don't know if anything more than 'please' and 'thank you' can be expected. After all, how many men think it's rude for women to not respond politely to complimenting catcalls - while many women think it's rude to catcall a female stranger in the first place. I want to respect everyone I speak to, but our own biases and ideas of respect are too different for that to be a realistic expectation. Just something you can learn as you get to know somebody.

And perhaps as you get to know them, you find they don't deserve your respect. But as an optimist, I like to think that those people are few and far between.


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## Devor

I think think there's layers to it.  You can still show respect for a person while bluntly chastising something they've done or an opinion they hold.  But I think there's definitely a raw layer of respect which everyone deserves, sort of like everyone deserves the due process of law.


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## LadyCass

saellys said:


> I probably have the most extreme opinions in this thread, but nowhere did I (or anyone else, for that matter) say there aren't any good female characters. I certainly recognize and applaud the improvements that have happened--maybe not in the past century, but definitely in the last couple of decades. Heck, I finally finished _The Deed of Paksenarrion_ (which has been touted as a great example in this and other threads), and that was written twenty-five years ago. Elizabeth Moon did then what many people wish more authors would do now.
> 
> Being a "story-driven" author does not mean characters have to be weakly written. Characters with agency influence a story. A writer who creates characters, male or female, with no agency weakens their own story.



I always need to watch when I words such as 'never' or 'always'.  Thanks for that catch.

I'm so bias on story driven vs. character driven story. I feel so often a character is altered to something that is was not when created or is created for a certain help in the story line but not developed beyond that. I think a lot of the issues that readers have with character flaws, male or female, have to do with that.


----------



## LadyCass

I will say the one area I feel women got the shaft the most was/is comic books. It feels to me only the past year have they begun to address that. All of the old school complaints about women being represented poorly do in fact apply in comic books. Most of them have unrealistically beautiful bodies with big boobs popping out, very rarely are they lead, they are only there to support the male lead, there attempts at giving them their own story line show them making decisions dependent on men, and all the others you can think of.
I think comic books have been the slowest to catch up of all the medias.


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## Mythopoet

Zero Angel said:


> First, a modicum of respect is hardly no respect at all, but many times people don't even deserve that. If someone is a waste of life and potential, then you're doing them a disservice to be respectful towards them. I don't believe honesty is the best policy, and I'm sure there are times when silence is golden, but you don't need to give respect to everyone in the world, just people that you feel deserve it. On the other hand, you should not be actively disrespectful towards people unless they deserve it also.



I believe that there is a basic level of respect that all human beings deserve simply because they are human beings and all life is sacred. And I believe that honesty is a basic kind of respect. No human being deserves to be lied to or deceived because a lie is one of the ways that you rob another of free will and that's a form of dehumanization that I can never agree with. I also believe that anything you can say honestly can AT THE SAME TIME be said with respect. Personally, I always give a lot of thought to anything I say before I say it.


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## T.Allen.Smith

It's possible to be completely honest while at the same time respectful. It's called tact. 

To be tactful you must be able to exercise judgment, choosing how you say things to get the full point across while still maintaining a level of respect for another. Representing yourself and your viewpoints in a tactful manner will always garner better results when trying to defend your position or attempting persuasion. 

Tactful expression is an extremely valuable skill, and in conjunction with ZA's prior post, requires intelligent thought & consideration for others thought before speaking. 

Even in cases where you may not respect a person, tact will always win out. It's the choice between composure & class versus rule by emotion & demagogue.


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## Steerpike

Feo, you seem to operate a lot on base level assumptions that are entirely inaccurate. It seems to me to reflect a lot of personal bias. If I had to guess, I'm likely one of the most socially liberal people on the forums. I realize that doesn't fit in with the prejudged point you were trying to make, though. I don't like intimidation or hypocrisy. If you think that's a conservative view, you're off base.


----------



## Devor

I just saw this on Facebook.  I don't have much of a point in posting it, except that it seemed interesting and relevant.

Love Lessons From The Dudes of Disney... From A Guy's Perspective


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## Mindfire

Devor said:


> I just saw this on Facebook.  I don't have much of a point in posting it, except that it seemed interesting and relevant.
> 
> Love Lessons From The Dudes of Disney... From A Guy's Perspective



Well that was... interesting. As far as Disney princes go, Simba and the Beast (whose name was Adam apparently) are tied for my favorite. Unless we're also (somehow) counting Tarzan. Then it's a three-way tie. I saw the most of myself in those guys. Prince Phillip gets an honorable mention for having an awesome fight scene though.


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## Feo Takahari

Steerpike said:


> Feo, you seem to operate a lot on base level assumptions that are entirely inaccurate. It seems to me to reflect a lot of personal bias. If I had to guess, I'm likely one of the most socially liberal people on the forums. I realize that doesn't fit in with the prejudged point you were trying to make, though. I don't like intimidation or hypocrisy. If you think that's a conservative view, you're off base.



I feel like I need to explain, but I'm afraid an explanation will turn into an excuse, and an excuse is the last thing that's needed right now. I guess I'll just say it and hope for the best.

Imagine that you're Mexican-American, and you're discussing American unemployment with someone. That person states that part of the problem is cheap Mexican labor filling niches that would otherwise be populated by Americans. You've probably heard this one dozens of times. You can easily predict what blame will be apportioned and what racial epithets will be used.

And of course, if it turns out to be a simple statement of fact, you've potentially just made an ass of yourself.

I'm always going to flinch at the statement that Christians are discriminated against in America. I've seen it lead into too many truly horrible statements--about atheists, about homosexuals, sometimes even about Socialists. But it's not appropriate for me to just assume that someone else is saying something they're not. I know how much it hurts when people assume I'm saying something I would never say, and I can't apologize enough.


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## Mythopoet

Feo Takahari said:


> I'm always going to flinch at the statement that Christians are discriminated against in America.



I do feel that Christians are the one group that everyone feels comfortable bashing constantly. Even Christians bash other Christians whose beliefs differ too much from their own. Catholics in particular are a popular subject for mockery and denigration. But I don't mind it so much because I know that if we weren't being discriminated against, it would be a sign that we aren't doing this Christianity thing right. Any religion that makes claims as extreme as those made by Christianity is going to be unacceptable to most people. We should expect discrimination and mockery. And we should be grateful that in America, that's as far as it goes. There are still plenty of places in the world you can be killed for being a Christian.


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## Ophiucha

I mean, it's awful when people are mocked and made fun of, bullying is never correct. But I have problems when men, white people, Christians, whathaveyou claim discrimination when - in fact - they are really only made fun of. Very few people are killed or deported for being white. Very few men are denied their reproductive rights. Very few Christians are harassed because some lone shooters happened to be a Christian. It's more politically correct to make fun of them, and it's not good that it's 'correct' to make fun of anyone, but saying all men think with their shafts hasn't contributed to a culture that widely blames men for, say, sexual assault. In fact, quite the opposite - that exact trait is often used to _excuse_ men, since they 'can't help themselves', and that women should have known better/done more to protect themselves.

We shouldn't do it; it's bullying, and it can hurt individuals. But it's not institutionalized, so if they call 'discrimination!', I'm going to call 'BS!'.

We're also _wildly _off topic, guys, so here's a topic: female goons, zombies, background characters. Anyone else notice this? You have a hoarde of zombies, odds are 80% of them will be (ex-?)men. You go into a dungeon in your standard RPG and often all of the generic barbarians and bandits will be men. (In the Bethesda [Elder Scrolls, Fallout] games, they often have a trait that gives you a 10% bonus against the opposite sex. Since I always play as a girl, I always pick this trait since like 7 out of 10 enemies in the game are male.) Your storm troopers, red shirts, etc. - almost always men. I get why females aren't always major characters (even if I disagree with it), but I can't fathom why they turn up so rarely among the nameless drones of lambs being brought to the slaughter, you know?


----------



## Mindfire

Because more often than not your standard mooks will be men. And statistically men are more likely to turn to violent crime, so an all-male bandit troupe isn't exactly an outrage. Plus, it's often seen as politically incorrect to attack/kill women in video games. But your mileage may vary on that one.


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## Chilari

Let's be careful about discussing religion, people. It's off topic and it only ever leads to people getting upset.

Ophi, you've got a good point about female "extras". That, if nothing else, really drives home the subconscious expectation that male is the default position. Women on the baddie's side are almost always either the baddie or the baddie's secretary, girlfriend, family member, etc. You don't get nameless women with no part in driving the plot just wandering around patrolling the walls, operating the computers, watching the security cameras, etc. In fact I can't remember the last time I saw a female security guard on TV or in a movie.

Edit: Mindfire posted while I was typing, so I'll update to say:

Yes, to an extent, women are less likely to be part of violent crime, but that doesn't mean there aren't any at all. There are, for example, several famous women pirates, and if a few got to the top and became captains, there must be a few normal pirates who are women too.

And it doesn't account for antagonist groups which aren't violent criminals - government organisations, mindless zombies, etc. Zombies in particular - when the population the zombies should be infecting are 50/50 (and if anything, men should be slightly better equipped to escape zombification so there should be more female zombies, by a small margin), but the zombie population is 70% or more male, you've got to ask what happened to all the women.

It's one thing when it's Call of Duty, set in WWII where women quite literally could not join the army, but when it's set on a space station in 2310 it's a different matter entirely.


----------



## Zero Angel

Mythopoet said:


> I believe that there is a basic level of respect that all human beings deserve simply because they are human beings and all life is sacred. And I believe that honesty is a basic kind of respect. No human being deserves to be lied to or deceived because a lie is one of the ways that you rob another of free will and that's a form of dehumanization that I can never agree with. I also believe that anything you can say honestly can AT THE SAME TIME be said with respect. Personally, I always give a lot of thought to anything I say before I say it.





T.Allen.Smith said:


> To be tactful you must be able to exercise judgment, choosing how you say things to get the full point across while still maintaining a level of respect for another. Representing yourself and your viewpoints in a tactful manner will always garner better results when trying to defend your position or attempting persuasion.
> 
> Tactful expression is an extremely valuable skill, and in conjunction with ZA's prior post, requires intelligent thought & consideration for others thought before speaking.
> 
> Even in cases where you may not respect a person, tact will always win out. It's the choice between composure & class versus rule by emotion & demagogue.



I just have to disagree with both of you I guess. I don't think those are things you can universalize. By universalize, I mean, it's OK for Mythopoet to believe that all people deserve a base level of respect for being people, but can't say that all people should believe that all people deserve a base level of respect for being people. I can't imagine an argument that is going to result in me accepting that opinion. 

Now, I don't think you should necessarily be cruel to people even if you don't respect them, so if this is what you mean by the base level of respect, then I suppose I can get on board, but even then, there are times when I am going to say it's OK to be cruel. 

And as far as tact goes, I think you can be tactful without being nice. I know the most common definition of tact is this idea of being nice and knowing what to say to avoid being offensive, but I like to think of it as tactical. And really, if you have tact, then you are able to manipulate people to your benefit. Usually, you'll be doing this without giving offense, and that's the accepted definition of tact, but I really think it should be more general. If you disagree, then I don't think people need to have your definition of "tact" at all times. Sometimes, what is the best tactical decision in a conversation is to offend. 

Now, what you really shouldn't do is give certain groups more or less respect based on membership in that group, unless membership in that group is chosen and that says something about them. So you can't (or at least shouldn't) give more or less respect to black people compared to white people, men compared to women, etc.

On the other hand, where do you draw the line? Should you give less respect to animals because they're not sapient? They didn't choose to not be sapient after all. And what about bugs? Do you kill them indiscriminately? 

You may think this is off-topic, but going back in history, many people did believe that women and other races were not as good as "real" humans. If it's OK to be mean to bugs, then isn't it OK to be nicer to your own group than a group you don't belong to? How do you quantify it?

Maybe it's too late to participate in a non-rambling manner. Apologies.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Didn't we mention female representation among bad guys twenty or thirty pages back? Or maybe that was in another thread?

I'll mention what I mentioned then, which is that I love how fair Mass Effect is about this. Female antagonists are common, and die just as gruesomely as male enemies. (I do think the violence in that series is generally stronger than it needs to be, but it's certainly not discriminatory.)


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Zero Angel said:


> I just have to disagree with both of you I guess. I don't think those are things you can universalize. By universalize, I mean, it's OK for Mythopoet to believe that all people deserve a base level of respect for being people, but can't say that all people should believe that all people deserve a base level of respect for being people. I can't imagine an argument that is going to result in me accepting that opinion.


Who said that? My only point was that tactful expression is most effective & what it takes to exercise tact.

If you're talking about people that you could never have any form of respect for, or consider the dregs of society, would you even be in a discussion with them? We're discussing people worth talking to....



Zero Angel said:


> And as far as tact goes, I think you can be tactful without being nice.


Totally agree. You can also be respectful without being nice. Neither is easy. Things worth doing rarely are....



Zero Angel said:


> Sometimes, what is the best tactical decision in a conversation is to offend.


If you're in a profession dealing with other people (or any social situation), those instances would be rare. People don't respond well to your message when offended. People get defensive. People shut down & you lose any ability to persuade. Trying to shock people out of their opinion by being offensive is almost always a poor choice. It's hard enough to get a convicted, intelligent person to change thinking & behavior as it is.



Zero Angel said:


> You may think this is off-topic, but going back in history, many people did believe that women and other races were not as good as "real" humans. If it's OK to be mean to bugs, then isn't it OK to be nicer to your own group than a group you don't belong to? How do you quantify it?


Yeah, that's a pretty big leap away from the argument. I follow your logic but it doesn't really fit this discussion, in my opinion. Sorry but I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. Maybe another will.


----------



## Devor

T.Allen.Smith said:


> If you're talking about people that you could never have any form of respect for, or consider the dregs of society, would you even be in a discussion with them? We're discussing people worth talking to....



I'm not sure what exactly you mean by the dregs of society, but I've had long chats with the homeless.  I would describe it as pretty insightful, actually.  It's usually not long before they're open about the drugs, and the people in their lives who've given up on them because of their behavior.

The world can be a messed up place, and people can do some messed up things.  But even the homeless help each other out and show compassion to each other, and so do prisoners in jail.  People aren't static and absolute.  Even someone who cannot conquer their problems learns a lot about life, from a perspective that you might never have considered.

If you want to classify people as the "dregs of society," maybe you should consider that society is much bigger than your corner of it.


----------



## Mythopoet

Ophiucha said:


> I mean, it's awful when people are mocked and made fun of, bullying is never correct. But I have problems when men, white people, Christians, whathaveyou claim discrimination when - in fact - they are really only made fun of.



Well, I won't go into it anymore, because it _is_ so off topic, but I just have to say that you're wrong.



Zero Angel said:


> I just have to disagree with both of you I guess. I don't think those are things you can universalize. By universalize, I mean, it's OK for Mythopoet to believe that all people deserve a base level of respect for being people, but can't say that all people should believe that all people deserve a base level of respect for being people. I can't imagine an argument that is going to result in me accepting that opinion.



I'm confused. Are you saying that I can't say that people should believe that all people deserve a base level of respect for being people? Well, you should. But it's pretty much the basis of my belief system that no one really behaves the way they're supposed to so I certainly don't expect you to agree with me.




Zero Angel said:


> Now, what you really shouldn't do is give certain groups more or less respect based on membership in that group, unless membership in that group is chosen and that says something about them. So you can't (or at least shouldn't) give more or less respect to black people compared to white people, men compared to women, etc.



Except that this is precisely what you are doing. You are grouping people into the ones that deserve your respect and the ones that don't. I don't know what exactly your criteria is to get into those groups, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't agree with it. 



Zero Angel said:


> You may think this is off-topic, but going back in history, many people did believe that women and other races were not as good as "real" humans. If it's OK to be mean to bugs, then isn't it OK to be nicer to your own group than a group you don't belong to? How do you quantify it?



You don't have to go back into history. There are places where women are still treated as chattel. Islamic nations, for one. I once spent a month in Egypt. It was very... interesting. When we weren't in the big tourist places my group was instructed that the girls shouldn't be seen by the locals talking to the boys or even looking any male in the eye. (We spent a lot of time in the terrorism-against-tourists capital of Egypt so it was important not to offend them.) When we were in the big tourism spots the girls in my group were assigned a "husband" from the males of the group so that when we were inevitably harassed by the local vendors and such, we could say "No, I'm married. This is my husband" and then they would leave us alone. It's really a different world.


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## saellys

Zero Angel said:


> I don't think those are things you can universalize.



I sure hope you're wrong about that. Treating different people with respect is the only thing that keeps large people groups coexisting peacefully, so without that skill, urban civilization would dissolve and we'd all have to live in isolated, homogeneous family groups to avoid constant warfare.



Zero Angel said:


> ... there are times when I am going to say it's OK to be cruel. ... Sometimes, what is the best tactical decision in a conversation is to offend.



I'm going to need examples, because I honestly cannot envision any situation where it's okay to be cruel and offensive. 



Mythopoet said:


> You don't have to go back into history. There are places where women are still treated as chattel. Islamic nations, for one. I once spent a month in Egypt. It was very... interesting. When we weren't in the big tourist places my group was instructed that the girls shouldn't be seen by the locals talking to the boys or even looking any male in the eye. (We spent a lot of time in the terrorism-against-tourists capital of Egypt so it was important not to offend them.) When we were in the big tourism spots the girls in my group were assigned a "husband" from the males of the group so that when we were inevitably harassed by the local vendors and such, we could say "No, I'm married. This is my husband" and then they would leave us alone. It's really a different world.



You don't even have to leave the country. In street harassment situations, I have found that the only way to get a dude to leave me alone is to say I'm married. They literally don't respond to anything else. Here's an actual exchange:

Dude riding his bike next to mine, with no prior interaction: "Wanna get dinner?"
Me: "No."
That's where it _should_ have ended. But...
Dude: "Why not?" (Like it's any of his business.)
Me: "You asked if I wanted to. I don't want to."
Dude: "Yeah, but _why_?"
Me: "I'm married."
Dude: "Oh. Have a nice day!" 

Obviously the situation is not as dire as your experiences in Egypt. Nevertheless, that attitude of ownership, or a woman only being "off-limits" if she's married regardless of what she actually wants, exists here too.


----------



## Mythopoet

saellys said:


> You don't even have to leave the country. In street harassment situations, I have found that the only way to get a dude to leave me alone is to say I'm married. They literally don't respond to anything else. Here's an actual exchange:
> 
> Dude riding his bike next to mine, with no prior interaction: "Wanna get dinner?"
> Me: "No."
> That's where it _should_ have ended. But...
> Dude: "Why not?" (Like it's any of his business.)
> Me: "You asked if I wanted to. I don't want to."
> Dude: "Yeah, but _why_?"
> Me: "I'm married."
> Dude: "Oh. Have a nice day!"
> 
> Obviously the situation is not as dire as your experiences in Egypt. Nevertheless, that attitude of ownership, or a woman only being "off-limits" if she's married regardless of what she actually wants, exists here too.



Here's the thing: you seem to be assuming that the guy had an attitude of "ownership" based on this brief encounter, but I can think of plenty of reasons for him to ask "why not?" that have nothing to do with such an attitude. I realize that you viewed his sudden invitation to dinner as somehow offensive. But consider that most guys have a hard time working up the courage to approach a woman for fear of rejection. (And we think they have all the power. Honestly, when it comes to relationships, women have sooo much power.) Perhaps he thought he was being cool and suave and honestly wondered what he did wrong so he could try something different the next time he approached a woman. Perhaps he felt a bit rebuffed by the brevity of your response and felt like you could at least give him a good reason. Perhaps if you had said something other than "I'm married" he would have accepted that just as easily because all he wanted was something a little more than "no" for his efforts. You'll never know, because you choose to play that card. 

Unless there was A LOT more to this encounter that you're not elaborating on, it seems to me like you're making some pretty big assumptions about a stranger's attitude and motivations.


----------



## Mindfire

Zero Angel said:


> *snip*



Zero Angel, this may not be your intent, but you're starting to come off as kind of an amoral, Machiavellian type.


----------



## Mindfire

saellys said:


> You don't even have to leave the country. In street harassment situations, I have found that the only way to get a dude to leave me alone is to say I'm married. They literally don't respond to anything else. Here's an actual exchange:
> 
> Dude riding his bike next to mine, with no prior interaction: "Wanna get dinner?"
> Me: "No."
> That's where it _should_ have ended. But...
> Dude: "Why not?" (Like it's any of his business.)
> Me: "You asked if I wanted to. I don't want to."
> Dude: "Yeah, but _why_?"
> Me: "I'm married."
> Dude: "Oh. Have a nice day!"
> 
> Obviously the situation is not as dire as your experiences in Egypt. Nevertheless, that attitude of ownership, or a woman only being "off-limits" if she's married regardless of what she actually wants, exists here too.



Part of the problem is that there's a community specifically built around giving guys advice on asking girls out... and their advice SUCKS. I'm not kidding. Some of the advice they'll most often give, things that are considered "common knowledge" are absolutely and without a doubt the lowest pedigree of bulls**t. Not even government grade bulls**t. I mean this is "stop telling me you didn't take that cookie out of the jar when I watched you do it before my very eyes" level bulls**t. And one of these ruinous pieces of advice is the idea that if a woman says no, it really means yes, except you have to show her you're strong and confident (which in this case means pushy apparently) so you can "pass the test" and she will then relent and go out with you.

Sorry, but I prefer to follow my father's advice which is, to paraphrase, "If a woman says no, IT MEANS F***ING NO!"

Okay now that I've got my reactionary, slightly off-topic rant out of my system, Mythopoet has a point. Maybe he was honestly curious about what he did wrong. Perhaps not. But things like intent can only be judged in the moment via nonverbal cues and such and are therefore impossible for us to tell from a 3rd person's perspective after the fact. I could read his part of the exchange above as pushy or I could read it as dejected, depending on the tone. But since saellys was the only person there at the time, only she can really know what the tone was.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Devor said:


> I'm not sure what exactly you mean by the dregs of society, but I've had long chats with the homeless.  I would describe it as pretty insightful, actually.  It's usually not long before they're open about the drugs, and the people in their lives who've given up on them because of their behavior.
> 
> The world can be a messed up place, and people can do some messed up things.  But even the homeless help each other out and show compassion to each other, and so do prisoners in jail.  People aren't static and absolute.  Even someone who cannot conquer their problems learns a lot about life, from a perspective that you might never have considered.
> 
> If you want to classify people as the "dregs of society," maybe you should consider that society is much bigger than your corner of it.




That's putting words in my mouth. I suppose I should've been more specific. I'm not talking about unfortunate people. I was referring to thugs, violent criminals, people of that ilk, ones that aren't concerned with redemption in any sense. There are parasites in this world. Yes, there are exceptions to every case. Just trying to clarify that to be in a constructive conversation, you'd likely be talking to someone you consider worth talking to, considering your argument/discussion topic.

I certainly wasn't attempting to degrade any specific "group" of people, talk down to anyone from a pulpit, or assign value to any person. Thats not me & I'd hope that should be clear to all members by this point. I've lived all over the world....in many countries & locales. I know better than most the variety that exists and how big the world truly is.... Still, people share basic commonalities regardless.


----------



## saellys

Mythopoet said:


> Here's the thing: you seem to be assuming that the guy had an attitude of "ownership" based on this brief encounter, but I can think of plenty of reasons for him to ask "why not?" that have nothing to do with such an attitude. I realize that you viewed his sudden invitation to dinner as somehow offensive. But consider that most guys have a hard time working up the courage to approach a woman for fear of rejection. (And we think they have all the power. Honestly, when it comes to relationships, women have sooo much power.) Perhaps he thought he was being cool and suave and honestly wondered what he did wrong so he could try something different the next time he approached a woman. Perhaps he felt a bit rebuffed by the brevity of your response and felt like you could at least give him a good reason. Perhaps if you had said something other than "I'm married" he would have accepted that just as easily because all he wanted was something a little more than "no" for his efforts. You'll never know, because you choose to play that card.
> 
> Unless there was A LOT more to this encounter that you're not elaborating on, it seems to me like you're making some pretty big assumptions about a stranger's attitude and motivations.



I don't feel compelled to sympathize with this dude based on the premise that it took "courage" to ask a random girl out to dinner. Rejection is a part of life. I hope I live long enough to see the day when women, in their interactions with men, fear something as trivial as rejection. 

Once I spent an entire year working up the nerve to give a cute boy my number; he never called me. I did not demand a reason why, though I could have since we saw each other frequently enough for several years after. He wasn't into me, so I moved on. Street Corner Bike Dude did not respect my first two answers, and I did not owe him an itemized list of reasons. That list would have started and ended with "You just approached me out of nowhere," which he obviously thought was totally acceptable, so it would not have been effective anyway.

Your implication that I should have nursed his wounded male pride by softening my answer is part of the reason women fear rejection too... but we're afraid of being the rejector. Not only are we trained by our culture to be wary of how men might react to rejection, but if we do flat out say "no," we're told later that we should have handled the situation differently. "No" in all its forms has to be respected without caveat, mitigation, or elaboration.


----------



## Mindfire

saellys said:


> I don't feel compelled to sympathize with this dude based on the premise that it took "courage" to ask a random girl out to dinner. Rejection is a part of life. I hope I live long enough to see the day when women, in their interactions with men, fear something as trivial as rejection.
> 
> Once I spent an entire year working up the nerve to give a cute boy my number; he never called me. I did not demand a reason why, though I could have since we saw each other frequently enough for several years after. He wasn't into me, so I moved on. Street Corner Bike Dude did not respect my first two answers, and I did not owe him an itemized list of reasons. That list would have started and ended with "You just approached me out of nowhere," which he obviously thought was totally acceptable, so it would not have been effective anyway.
> 
> Your implication that I should have nursed his wounded male pride by softening my answer is part of the reason women fear rejection too... but we're afraid of being the rejector. Not only are we trained by our culture to be wary of how men might react to rejection, but if we do flat out say "no," we're told later that we should have handled the situation differently. "No" in all its forms has to be respected without caveat, mitigation, or elaboration.



Saellys, if the guy was pushy I can understand your reaction, and you were within your rights to say no regardless. For what it's worth, I was actually on your side up to this point. But the tone of this statement makes it sound like you relish in giving unqualified, unexplained negative answers for the joy of wounding male pride out of a sense of vengeance. Just saying.


----------



## saellys

No, I said Mythopoet implied his pride was wounded and I should have done something about it. I did not relish the experience in the slightest. I would have relished being left alone to go about my business without unsolicited, questionably romantic advances from a total stranger.


----------



## Mindfire

Okay. Note to self: do not approach strangers. I'm learning so much today.


----------



## saellys

Yeah, that's definitely what you should take away from my posts.


----------



## Mythopoet

saellys said:


> No, I said Mythopoet implied his pride was wounded and I should have done something about it. I did not relish the experience in the slightest. I would have relished being left alone to go about my business without unsolicited, questionably romantic advances from a total stranger.



I did not imply any such thing. I presented it as a _possible_ reason someone would want a deeper reason for being rejected. You're reading a lot into my statements. My point is that perhaps before you assume that someone approached you with malicious intent and viewed you as property, you should take a moment to ponder whether it's reasonable to make such assumptions about ANY human being based on so little interaction. Human beings are complex creatures and we all have our own motivations. The way you are shallowly characterizing this guy as the enemy doesn't make me sympathize with you at all. It seems like you go through life seeing women as the constant victims of male aggression. Unless you live in a very different world than I do, this seems extremely unreasonable. 

Like I said before, the best way to treat others is to give them the benefit of the doubt at all times, unless you have really good reasons for not doing so. In my opinion, based on the way you reported the incident, you didn't have good reasons.


----------



## Zero Angel

Mythopoet said:


> Except that this is precisely what you are doing. You are grouping people into the ones that deserve your respect and the ones that don't. I don't know what exactly your criteria is to get into those groups, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't agree with it.


Right so here's an example from my life. In 8th grade there was a kid that raped a 3 year old and was sent to juvenile detention for a while. That was (a) a conscious decision for him to enter that group (rapists and pedophiles I mean) and (b) something I could not move past in my esteem of the individual. From about 10th grade through 12th grade, if I saw him harassing female students (he would probably say flirting, but the girls were "too nice" to outright get rid of him even though they all detested him), I'd go over and be rude and belligerent until he left. The girls then thanked me and I responded by telling them they don't have to be nice to him. Many of them were afraid to not be nice. 

There was probably another tactic I could have tried that involved befriending him, trying to get him to sublimate his perverse ways, etc, but that's not one I was willing to do.



Mindfire said:


> Zero Angel, this may not be your intent, but you're starting to come off as kind of an amoral, Machiavellian type.



I have morals and ethics, they're just not necessarily the same as everyone else's. Plus, I'm thinking about all of the characters I create as well when I am responding on here. I don't necessarily believe that the ends justify the means, but sometimes I think that the ends are worth the means. It really is just a matter of scope. If the stakes are large, then it would be immoral NOT to be immoral. Has anyone ever seen "When the Last Sword is Drawn"?

We are trained in society to be anti-Machiavellian, but you have to remember that Machiavelli wrote "The Prince" to a prince, not a normal member of society. There are many examples of leaders being Machiavellian and it having been the right thing to do. WWII after the allies broke the Nazi code for example. The leaders made a conscious decision to not save everyone they could because if they did, then the Nazis would know the allies had broke their code and they wouldn't be able to continue using it. I'd never say that was moral or ethical for them to have forfeited those lives, but it would have been MORE immoral for them not to have.


----------



## Zero Angel

Mindfire said:


> Okay. Note to self: do not approach strangers. I'm learning so much today.



You could just not feed the trolls


----------



## saellys

Mythopoet said:


> I did not imply any such thing. I presented it as a _possible_ reason someone would want a deeper reason for being rejected. You're reading a lot into my statements. My point is that perhaps before you assume that someone approached you with malicious intent and viewed you as property, you should take a moment to ponder whether it's reasonable to make such assumptions about ANY human being based on so little interaction. Human beings are complex creatures and we all have our own motivations. The way you are shallowly characterizing this guy as the enemy doesn't make me sympathize with you at all. It seems like you go through life seeing women as the constant victims of male aggression. Unless you live in a very different world than I do, this seems extremely unreasonable.
> 
> Like I said before, the best way to treat others is to give them the benefit of the doubt at all times, unless you have really good reasons for not doing so. In my opinion, based on the way you reported the incident, you didn't have good reasons.



I'm not saying he had malicious intent. He invited me to dinner, a pretty innocuous thing to do by any standard. I drew my conclusion about his view of me as property because he only backed off when he found out I was married. I cannot see his deeper motivations, only what he did and said after I rejected him. I don't believe he intended me harm, but I do believe, based on our interaction, that he was unwilling to respect my wishes until he found out I was "taken". 

Also, women _are_ the constant victims of male aggression.



Zero Angel said:


> You could just not feed the trolls



I like to think I contribute meaningfully to this community in enough ways to not be labeled a troll for defending my beliefs.


----------



## Mythopoet

saellys said:


> I'm not saying he had malicious intent. He invited me to dinner, a pretty innocuous thing to do by any standard. I also did not say he viewed me as property, but that he only backed off when he found out I was married. I cannot see his deeper motivations, only what he did and said after I rejected him. I don't believe he intended me harm, but I do believe, based on our interaction, that he was unwilling to respect my wishes until he found out I was "taken".





saellys said:


> You don't even have to leave the country. In street harassment situations, I have found that the only way to get a dude to leave me alone is to say I'm married. They literally don't respond to anything else.
> 
> Obviously the situation is not as dire as your experiences in Egypt. Nevertheless, that attitude of ownership, or a woman only being "off-limits" if she's married regardless of what she actually wants, exists here too.



The quote above strongly implies that you viewed this particular exchange that you related as "harassment". What is harassment if it's not malicious? You present this as an example that men "literally" don't respond to "anything else" meaning that there is never a situation in which a man would leave you alone unless they find out you are married. You also present this as an example of an "attitude of ownership" being present here as well as in Egypt. So yes, you are implying that this "dude" maliciously harassed you and the only reason he decided that you weren't his property is because he found out you belong to someone else.

And, from the way you described the encounter, I find that a highly unreasonable assumption to make. If there's more to the encounter that actually makes it seem like you aren't just jumping to conclusions about a stranger's character, then please share.



saellys said:


> Also, women _are_ the constant victims of male aggression.



So a study of women in one state that found 33% of them have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime means that women are constant victims of aggression, does it? Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not a victim of male aggression, so that disproves the "constant" part.


----------



## saellys

Mythopoet said:


> The quote above strongly implies that you viewed this particular exchange that you related as "harassment". What is harassment if it's not malicious? You present this as an example that men "literally" don't respond to "anything else" meaning that there is never a situation in which a man would leave you alone unless they find out you are married. You also present this as an example of an "attitude of ownership" being present here as well as in Egypt. So yes, you are implying that this "dude" maliciously harassed you and the only reason he decided that you weren't his property is because he found out you belong to someone else.
> 
> And, from the way you described the encounter, I find that a highly unreasonable assumption to make. If there's more to the encounter that actually makes it seem like you aren't just jumping to conclusions about a stranger's character, then please share.



Mitigation time: I edited my prior post to better reflect my conclusion about him seeing me as property. It's still not an unreasonable assumption. Our conversation ended when I told him I was married, not before. What else am I to conclude?



Mythopoet said:


> So a study of women in one state that found 33% of them have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime means that women are constant victims of aggression, does it? Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not a victim of male aggression, so that disproves the "constant" part.



Read past the first section. A woman is raped every two minutes in America. Hence the word "constant". I'm glad it's never happened to you.


----------



## PaulineMRoss

I'm trying really, really hard to keep out of this ... oh, how shall I put it? ... free and frank exchange of views, but I have to say this. For a woman, being approached by a completely unknown man, for any reason whatsoever, is CREEPY. If she's on her own, it's also SCARY. It's entirely irrelevant that his motives may be innocuous, he means it as a compliment or he had to summon all his courage, or whatever, the woman doesn't know that, because he's a complete stranger. He isn't entitled to reasons or anything else, because his behaviour is threatening. If you want it explained in more detail, try this:

Guest Blogger Starling: SchrÃ¶dinger

Now can we get back to talking about women in fantasy?


----------



## saellys

I certainly won't make the mistake of posting my personal experiences here for everyone's scrutiny again. Here is a collection of street harassment, for anyone who's curious--from innocuous to life-threatening and everything between. 

Now. Favorite fantasy novel cover art, or illustration from a fantasy novel, or fanart of a fantasy novel, featuring a female character? _Paksenarrion_'s cover is high on my list, of course.


----------



## Ophiucha

Regarding the 'men are more likely to be soldiers/criminals' explanation for mooks, I think that is valid in games and books that take place on Earth - modern or earlier. But, for instance, in a game like Skyrim, where women and men are clearly equal (we see a female Jarl, female generals, and at least a few - if fewer - female bandits and city guards), I don't know if our societal norms dictate anything more than the programmer's choice to have more men in the group than any logical worldbuilding. This also still leaves open the question of monsters: why are monsters like zombies more likely to be men? Unless you've got a virus where, like, women are only carriers (hmm... not a bad idea actually), then why would there be so few women in the zombie hoardes? And other monsters are usually male as well, unless they intend to have the 'he's a mommy!' twist to justify a sequel where there are hundreds of (all male-coded) monsters instead of just the one. The only two truly monstrous ones I can think of Scylla and Charybdis, which are just a rock and a whirlpool so it's generous to gender them one way or the other at all. Most other monsters are coded exclusively male, with the exception of the seductress ones (sirens, earlier discussed succubi) or the ones that are otherwise topless and mostly humanoid, like mermaids and harpies (though we don't see much of centaurs, sans the infamous bit in _Fantasia_).

Like, dragons are popular enough that those numbers are beginning to even out (though the non-sentient ones are still almost exclusively male), but where are my female cyclopses? Or the part-woman, part-cow minotaur equivalents? Female ogres and orcs and krakens and chimeras? Tragic lack of lady!monsters, that's all I'm saying.


----------



## Ophiucha

saellys said:


> Favorite fantasy novel cover art, or illustration from a fantasy novel, or fanart of a fantasy novel, featuring a female character? _Paksenarrion_'s cover is high on my list, of course.



I'll be the one to bring up the simple choice of _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_/_Through the Looking Glass_. The John Tenniel art is fantastic, and incredibly influential on how I see fantasy worlds as a whole. Plus, Alice is adorable in them. I'd be the annoying aunt who pinches her cheeks if I were Victorian and living in her world. And I don't believe this is my first time mentioning my love of Elia Fernandez's fanart of the _Game of Thrones_ women, seen here (spoilers and minor nudity!; here are a couple that aren't).


----------



## saellys

> Quoted post deleted by Chilari.



My last word on this particular subject: It's sad that men are presumed dangerous until encountered in a safe environment, but it's way more sad that women have to take these precautions in the first place. 

Everybody go look at this awesome 1990s-style Game of Thrones fanart now.


----------



## saellys

Ophiucha said:


> I'll be the one to bring up the simple choice of _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_/_Through the Looking Glass_. The John Tenniel art is fantastic, and incredibly influential on how I see fantasy worlds as a whole. Plus, Alice is adorable in them. I'd be the annoying aunt who pinches her cheeks if I were Victorian and living in her world. And I don't believe this is my first time mentioning my love of Elia Fernandez's fanart of the _Game of Thrones_ women, seen here (spoilers and minor nudity!; here are a couple that aren't).



I've seen the Ygritte one but I never knew there were more! *swoon*


----------



## Feo Takahari

> Quoted post deleted by Chilari.



I had what I consider a productive conversation with a cute girl on the bus a few weeks ago. She asked to borrow my phone to make a call, and when she was done, we chatted for a bit about school, work, and plans for the future. She was happy to talk, and I was ready to listen.

A few days ago, some fellows I didn't know tried to start a conversation with me while I was trying to read. One of the first questions they asked me was where I lived, and when I said "nearby," they started to get pushy about the exact location. I had a hard time extricating myself even after I outright told them I didn't want to talk.

If someone doesn't want to talk, they don't want to talk. This doesn't mean you can't talk at all, it means you need to listen when people tell you no. No more and no less.


----------



## Zero Angel

saellys said:


> I like to think I contribute meaningfully to this community in enough ways to not be labeled a troll for defending my beliefs.



We can all be trolls when prodded or fed enough. I only meant to say there was no need for Mindfire to be so incredulous over your posts. 58 pages in now, I no longer get offended or incredulous over your posts, I just skim them and go on to the next. You are contributing, but your imperviousity to critique and others' attempts to understand has made it so that calling you out for something is a fool's errand at best and troll-feeding at worst. On the other hand, I believe some people may be calling you out just to call you out, which approaches trolls-feeding-trolls.


----------



## Kit

I sometimes resort to earbuds (running into my pocket and connected with nothing) to get people to leave me alone. It's amazing how many people insist on trying to talk to you even when you have your nose in a book and respond with one-word answers (never taking nose out of book). I have also told people I'm married (or threw in a reference to a boyfriend) even when it wasn't true.

When you have earbuds in, you are perfectly entitled to completely ignore people.


----------



## saellys

Zero Angel said:


> We can all be trolls when prodded or fed enough. I only meant to say there was no need for Mindfire to be so incredulous over your posts. 58 pages in now, I no longer get offended or incredulous over your posts, I just skim them and go on to the next. You are contributing, but your imperviousity to critique and others' attempts to understand has made it so that calling you out for something is a fool's errand at best and troll-feeding at worst. On the other hand, I believe some people may be calling you out just to call you out, which approaches trolls-feeding-trolls.



When I see relevant critique (Feo's post a while back, for instance), I try to take it into account. When I spend two pages defending my response to unwanted advances from a stranger, I'm not really interested in giving ground. 



Kit said:


> I sometimes resort to earbuds (running into my pocket and connected with nothing) to get people to leave me alone. It's amazing how many people insist on trying to talk to you even when you have your nose in a book and respond with one-word answers (never taking nose out of book). I have also told people I'm married (or threw in a reference to a boyfriend) even when it wasn't true.
> 
> When you have earbuds in, you are perfectly entitled to completely ignore people.



I wear big honkin' headphones when I ride the bus or go to a coffeehouse to work on writing or design, and try to look as intent and unapproachable as possible. Sometimes people still try to talk to me. Sometimes I wish I lived in a less friendly place.


----------



## Mindfire

To clarify, if you take what was said in context of my mini-rant earlier on page 56, I think the manner of approach and the tone should be taken into account when judging the person. Not just "they approached me, so they must be dangerous." There's a line here is what I'm getting at. But if they cross that line, by all means, drop a piano on them.


----------



## Chilari

Let's keep this discussion about women in fantasy, please people. We shouldn't need to constantly remind you and while it would be sad to do so, we will lock this thread if it becomes too troublesome.

While it's not a book, one of my favourite depictions of the variety of female characters there can be, who have agency and contribute to the plot, is in Avatar: the Last Airbender. Katara, Toph, Azula, Mai and Ty Lee all have very different personalities, but they're all awesome in their own ways, and none of them are really flat, they've all got depth to their personalities. The LEgend of Korra was a bit of a disappointment to me because Korra and Asami seemed a lot more archetypal than their Last Airbender predecessors, with less depth; Asami in particular seemed to have almost no personality.


----------



## Mindfire

Chilari said:


> Let's keep this discussion about women in fantasy, please people. We shouldn't need to constantly remind you and while it would be sad to do so, we will lock this thread if it becomes too troublesome.
> 
> While it's not a book, one of my favourite depictions of the variety of female characters there can be, who have agency and contribute to the plot, is in Avatar: the Last Airbender. Katara, Toph, Azula, Mai and Ty Lee all have very different personalities, but they're all awesome in their own ways, and none of them are really flat, they've all got depth to their personalities. The LEgend of Korra was a bit of a disappointment to me because Korra and Asami seemed a lot more archetypal than their Last Airbender predecessors, with less depth; Asami in particular seemed to have almost no personality.



I think that's because Asami wasn't given much to do until the second half of the season. She was mostly there just to be Korra's foil/romantic speedbump. But despite that fact, people still found a way to hate her for absolutely no reason. And she got tons of hate. Just as much as, if not more than the hate Mai got from the Zutara shippers. What is it about this show and the ships it spawns?

But once Asami was given stuff to do, she was pretty awesome. Not quite as awesome as General Iroh II, but still up there.


----------



## Zero Angel

Does anyone think that the reason female characters are so popular in urban fantasy because it's "modern" and reflects modern values while traditional fantasy often has that patriarchal idea in our heads even when completely off-world or in a supposedly non-patriarchal society?


----------



## Ophiucha

saellys said:


> I've seen the Ygritte one but I never knew there were more! *swoon*



Yes, they're very nice. I don't know all of the characters and I'm afraid to click on them because spoilers (though I'm a bit disappointed in this season so I might just read ahead of the TV show just so I can be excited about what's to come), but all of the pictures are gorgeous - particularly the colouring - and of the characters I do know the little bits of symbolism are lovely. Margaery is probably my favourite of her pictures, but Asha and Ygritte are both great, too.


----------



## Chilari

Mindfire said:


> I think that's because Asami wasn't given much to do until the second half of the season. She was mostly there just to be Korra's foil/romantic speedbump. But despite that fact, people still found a way to hate her for absolutely no reason. And she got tons of hate. Just as much as, if not more than the hate Mai got from the Zutara shippers. What is it about this show and the ships it spawns?
> 
> But once Asami was given stuff to do, she was pretty awesome. Not quite as awesome as General Iroh II, but still up there.



Yes, in the last few episodes Asami did get more to do and in some cases was pretty cool about it, but she still never really had any depth. But the fact that the two female main characters in that show were, to one another, primarily romantic rivals also says a lot about the approach the Legend of Korra took; the Last Airbender demonstrated that two female characters could have a rivalry that had absolutely nothing to do with romance or men at all - when Toph joined the Gaang, she and Katara had a clash regarding their approaches to the group and philosophies about life and what they were doing, and the manner by which they resolved it was between themselves, organically - in fact the attempts by Aang and Sokka to fix things were comically bad and failed tremendously. That there was no such organic, believable relationship at any point between Asami and Korra was, I think, a huge failure; it felt very contrived to me, to generate drama, rather than to show character growth.


----------



## Chilari

Zero Angel said:


> Does anyone think that the reason female characters are so popular in urban fantasy because it's "modern" and reflects modern values while traditional fantasy often has that patriarchal idea in our heads even when completely off-world or in a supposedly non-patriarchal society?



An interesting question. Are so many fantasy worlds patriarchal because it is realistic, based upon biological needs and differences, for a patriarchy to develop in a society that lacks social and technological advancement? Or are they patriarchal because that is what we see not only in our own world's history but also to a lesser extent in the modern world, and thus we reflect this bias in our fantasy?

With what I've been writing recently, I'm trying to develop worlds where there is a degree of equality, still with some gender roles but without the same kind of division historically seen on Earth. I want to write women with more agency; in my WIP, the protagonist is female and the cult leader villain is too. I've got a variety of male and female characters, including scientists, cult members, bounty hunters, protesters, armchair activists, city guards and so on. We'll see how it turns out but I see no reason it can't work. I don't want to write tired old "female character rebels against patriarchy" stories, I just want to write stories where patriarchy isn't holding me back.


----------



## Mindfire

Chilari said:


> Yes, in the last few episodes Asami did get more to do and in some cases was pretty cool about it, but she still never really had any depth. But the fact that the two female main characters in that show were, to one another, primarily romantic rivals also says a lot about the approach the Legend of Korra took; the Last Airbender demonstrated that two female characters could have a rivalry that had absolutely nothing to do with romance or men at all - when Toph joined the Gaang, she and Katara had a clash regarding their approaches to the group and philosophies about life and what they were doing, and the manner by which they resolved it was between themselves, organically - in fact the attempts by Aang and Sokka to fix things were comically bad and failed tremendously. That there was no such organic, believable relationship at any point between Asami and Korra was, I think, a huge failure; it felt very contrived to me, to generate drama, rather than to show character growth.



Well consider the audience. The original Avatar show was aimed (for the most part) at kids age 10-15. Legend of Korra is clearly attempt to target the exact same fans who have grown older and are now proper teenagers. Plus, a large part of the Avatar fanbase was and still is female. And what do teenage girls want? LOVE TRIANGLES OF COURSE!


----------



## Mindfire

Chilari said:


> An interesting question. Are so many fantasy worlds patriarchal because it is realistic, based upon biological needs and differences, for a patriarchy to develop in a society that lacks social and technological advancement? Or are they patriarchal because that is what we see not only in our own world's history but also to a lesser extent in the modern world, and thus we reflect this bias in our fantasy?
> 
> With what I've been writing recently, I'm trying to develop worlds where there is a degree of equality, still with some gender roles but without the same kind of division historically seen on Earth. I want to write women with more agency; in my WIP, the protagonist is female and the cult leader villain is too. I've got a variety of male and female characters, including scientists, cult members, bounty hunters, protesters, armchair activists, city guards and so on. We'll see how it turns out but I see no reason it can't work. I don't want to write tired old "female character rebels against patriarchy" stories, I just want to write stories where patriarchy isn't holding me back.



While we're discussing this, I'd like to say I think the word patriarchy gets a bad rap. I associate the word patriarch with people like the heroes of the Abrahamic faiths. People like Abraham, Moses, David, etc. I also associate the word patriarchy with a society centered around family groups, which isn't in itself a bad thing. One of the ethnic groups from my work, the Mavarians, are a patriarchal society in this sense. Family is a huge part of their culture and they're mostly governed by tribal councils. But none of this implies that their society is inherently demeaning to women. Women can lead their families as matrons and a number of women sit on the Arch Council (highest tribal council and legislative body) and are well-respected. Can we find some other word to pillory?


----------



## Chilari

Mindfire said:


> Well consider the audience. The original Avatar show was aimed (for the most part) at kids age 10-15. Legend of Korra is clearly attempt to target the exact same fans who have grown older and are now proper teenagers. Plus, a large part of the Avatar fanbase was and still is female. And what do teenage girls want? LOVE TRIANGLES OF COURSE!



I wish networks and studios would get over the notion that romance - and indeed love triangles - are the only way to interest female audiences.

I guess in a way that's why I write what I write, and why I avoid romances. I want to tell an interesting story involving women with agency without needing to rely on romance to increase the drama.


----------



## Mindfire

Chilari said:


> I wish networks and studios would get over the notion that romance - and indeed love triangles - are the only way to interest female audiences.
> 
> I guess in a way that's why I write what I write, and why I avoid romances. I want to tell an interesting story involving women with agency without needing to rely on romance to increase the drama.



In part I blame the shippers and fan-ficcers from the last time around. Avatar shipping grew to legendary proportions, and thus romance was a major part of Korra season 1 when it didn't need to be. Hopefully season 2 will be different.


----------



## Mindfire

Chilari said:


> I wish networks and studios would get over the notion that romance - and indeed love triangles - are the only way to interest female audiences.
> 
> I guess in a way that's why I write what I write, and why I avoid romances. I want to tell an interesting story involving women with agency without needing to rely on romance to increase the drama.



In part I blame the shippers and fan-ficcers from the last time around. Avatar shipping grew to legendary proportions, and thus romance was a major part of Korra season 1 when it didn't need to be. Hopefully season 2 will be different.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> While we're discussing this, I'd like to say I think the word patriarchy gets a bad rap. I associate the word patriarch with people like the heroes of the Abrahamic faiths. People like Abraham, Moses, David, etc. I also associate the word patriarchy with a society centered around family groups, which isn't in itself a bad thing. One of the ethnic groups from my work, the Mavarians, are a patriarchal society in this sense. Family is a huge part of their culture and they're mostly governed by tribal councils. But none of this implies that their society is inherently demeaning to women. Women can lead their families as matrons and a number of women sit on the Arch Council (highest tribal council and legislative body) and are well-respected. Can we find some other word to pillory?



"Patriarchy" is a word for rule by men. Rule by women is "matriarchy." I'm not sure of the "chy" for kinship groups, which are what you seem to be referring to.


----------



## Mindfire

Doesn't patriarchy come from the Latin _pater_, meaning "father"? And what is a father if not the head of a family? Rule by men over women would be more accurately called a virarchy or something to that effect.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> Doesn't patriarchy come from the Latin _pater_, meaning "father"? And what is a father if not the head of a family? Rule by men over women would be more accurately called a virarchy or something to that effect.



I had that PM marathon with you, so I think I understand what you mean, but you REALLY need to clarify that for everyone else. Taken on its own, that post sounds like you're saying the oldest male in a family should control everyone else, and those posters who aren't old males aren't necessarily going to respond well to that.


----------



## Mythopoet

Chilari said:


> Let's keep this discussion about women in fantasy, please people. We shouldn't need to constantly remind you and while it would be sad to do so, we will lock this thread if it becomes too troublesome.



Eh, don't worry. I'm going to bow out at this point. The only interesting parts of this thread were when it was off topic. When it stays on topic it's just people rehashing the same old tiresomely "modern" opinions and agreeing with each other. This thread has given me some fodder for thought though and I'll probably explore the topic of women in fiction (and in real life) on my blog a bit. Don't read it though. I doubt any of you will appreciate my opinions and beliefs. After all, the opinions of women who don't fall in line with the feminist agenda don't really count.


----------



## PaulineMRoss

Mythopoet said:


> I'll probably explore the topic of women in fiction (and in real life) on my blog a bit.



Your blog (as per your sig) appears to have gone walkabout.


----------



## Ophiucha

The English Language: where the words are made up and the roots don't matter.

As a word nerd, I'll add that the expanded use of the word mostly just originates from lazy anthropologists and historians who like to draw a good analogue across cultures and call it 'human nature'. This happens a lot, and explains why so many of the words we have are technically (by the definition/root) more vague than they are when put in use. If you cared, though, some do use the words 'androcracy' and 'phallocracy', though not universally. Patriarchy is definitely the most common choice.


----------



## Chilari

Mythopoet said:


> Eh, don't worry. I'm going to bow out at this point. The only interesting parts of this thread were when it was off topic. When it stays on topic it's just people rehashing the same old tiresomely "modern" opinions and agreeing with each other. This thread has given me some fodder for thought though and I'll probably explore the topic of women in fiction (and in real life) on my blog a bit. Don't read it though. I doubt any of you will appreciate my opinions and beliefs. After all, the opinions of women who don't fall in line with the feminist agenda don't really count.



If you feel we are rehashing modern feminist opinions on fantasy characters, feel free to jump in with your own views, provided it remains within the stated topic of women in fantasy.


----------



## Mythopoet

Chilari said:


> If you feel we are rehashing modern feminist opinions on fantasy characters, feel free to jump in with your own views, provided it remains within the stated topic of women in fantasy.



Eh, doesn't seem to be worth it because this thread seems to be all about how bad it is for women in fiction and I really think it's just not that bad. 



PaulineMRoss said:


> Your blog (as per your sig) appears to have gone walkabout.



oops. Forgot I changed the domain. Fixed.


----------



## Devor

Zero Angel said:


> You are contributing, but your imperviousity to critique and others' attempts to understand has made it so that calling you out for something is a fool's errand at best and troll-feeding at worst. On the other hand, I believe some people may be calling you out just to call you out, which approaches trolls-feeding-trolls.



I don't see Saellys trolling at all, Zero Angel.

Mindfire trolls a bit, and he basically admits it.


----------



## Chessie

I agree, Chilari, romance isn't the only way to a woman's heart.  I would love to see more female characters in fantasy use less sex or sex appeal to get what they want. GOT is one example (someone will spear me for this I just know) of females in fantasy _going the wrong way_. Even Dany, who becomes BA in her own right, went through this "I must reach my womanhood through sex" with her husband. 

I love a good romance too even though its not necessary to show where a woman's strength is. Granted, fantasy cultures are derived from historical ones where women haven't had many rights since the dawn of time. That part I get, but it is fantasy because we can change what we choose to tell our own story.


----------



## Garren Jacobsen

Here is a question how do market forces play into these tropes and things. Like with Legend of Korra, I am willing to bet that during the making of this story there was a tone of market research done to decide the story line before the show was created in earnest.


----------



## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> The English Language: where the words are made up and the roots don't matter.



YES. From an etymological standpoint, the English language is pretty much FUBAR.


----------



## Mindfire

Devor said:


> I don't see Saellys trolling at all, Zero Angel.
> 
> Mindfire trolls a bit, and he basically admits it.



Yeah, I do. But I do my best to keep it tasteful.


----------



## Zero Angel

Chilari said:


> I wish networks and studios would get over the notion that romance - and indeed love triangles - are the only way to interest female audiences.
> 
> I guess in a way that's why I write what I write, and why I avoid romances. I want to tell an interesting story involving women with agency without needing to rely on romance to increase the drama.



We've really got to look at this from an economical viewpoint. Big companies do what makes them money, and love triangles and the like makes them oodles of money. 



Devor said:


> I don't see Saellys trolling at all, Zero Angel.
> 
> Mindfire trolls a bit, and he basically admits it.



Must be semantics then, Devor, and I believe I included Mindfire with my trolls-feeding-trolls bit.



Brian Scott Allen said:


> Here is a question how do market forces play into these tropes and things. Like with Legend of Korra, I am willing to bet that during the making of this story there was a tone of market research done to decide the story line before the show was created in earnest.



Again, we're back to the economics of the issue. Has anyone read "Freakonomics" or watched the documentary? The viewpoint is basically that human nature is ruled by the rules of economics and in order to understand why people do what they do, we just have to look at the incentives behind their actions.


----------



## saellys

Chesterama said:


> I agree, Chilari, romance isn't the only way to a woman's heart.  I would love to see more female characters in fantasy use less sex or sex appeal to get what they want. GOT is one example (someone will spear me for this I just know) of females in fantasy _going the wrong way_. Even Dany, who becomes BA in her own right, went through this "I must reach my womanhood through sex" with her husband.
> 
> I love a good romance too even though its not necessary to show where a woman's strength is. Granted, fantasy cultures are derived from historical ones where women haven't had many rights since the dawn of time. That part I get, but it is fantasy because we can change what we choose to tell our own story.



Game of Thrones the show, or ASOIAF the books, or both? Because Martin is guilty of this to an extent, but the show is _a million times worse_. 

I think it's also important to note that you can write a fantasy culture based largely in our roundly not-women-friendly history, but still write great female characters.


----------



## Chessie

Saellys, I've never seen the show. I read the first book and the way women used sex to advance in their lives or just plain survive was one of the things that turned me off about the story. I like Martin's writing but most of the women were next to clueless harlots. I didn't vibe with GOT.


----------



## Philip Overby

Ninja'd: Chesterama, I think if you stuck with the story, you'd see they are anything but "clueless harlots." 

I think Dany and Cersei are two of the best women characters in all of fantasy. It's not because they're perfect, shining beacons of virtue and are badasses to boot. It's because they feel like real people with real ambitions. In their world, they have to use what they've been given to get what they want. You could go a whole other route with Cersei often lamenting her womanhood because it prevents her from being what she thinks she's destined to be. Cersei is a horrible human being regardless of her sex, the same way Joffrey is. However, like any great villain, Cersei thinks what she's doing is right for her family. Her short-sightedness and impatience are what often cause her problems. Joffrey, who is a demon seed ten times worse than his mother, amplifies Cersei's bad traits. 

In my opinion, Cersei is great character period. I think if she didn't have her flaws, she'd be just another character. 

I find it interesting that the character who is least "lady-like" in the sense of Martin's world, is often considered the strongest female character: Arya. 

Anyway, to avoid spoilers, I won't go too in depth. But I think Martin probably does one of the best jobs in all of fantasy when it comes to making women a key part of his story.


----------



## Devor

Mindfire said:


> Yeah, I do. But I do my best to keep it tasteful.



I think it might be past time to stop with that, Mindfire.


----------



## Ophiucha

I won't comment on Arya since I'm still unspoiled in regards to the details but I'm spoiled enough to know she's going to get some character development. But I will say that my favourite character (up to half-way through SoS) is Sansa Stark, because she is a perfect lady, right down to sticking with her fiance despite him being the absolute worst, and yet she is still such a strong character. I love her because it's something we see so rarely - the perfect lady who doesn't fight it unless it's for her life, yet we see has so much more inside of her, we see her hatred of Joffrey and her love of her siblings and her joy at her friendship with Margaery and her (misguided) crush on Loras. We see that despite acting the perfect lady, despite being what anyone else would see as the very typical bland background character who gets to say 'yes milord' and little else in every other fantasy story, GRRM lets her be a perspective character and a Stark. And while I love Brienne and Arya for being fighters, and Cersei for being subversive, I appreciate that he lets us see a very typical woman and still show that she's more than just curtsies and corsets.

I also love Olenna and Margaery, for similar reasons, though Margaery is more manipulative than Sansa she still never really tries to exceed her station (unlike Cersei who actively desires to be in the 'place' of a man in her world) and Olenna... well, who doesn't love Olenna? Particularly if you're aware of one _particular _spoiler. Plus, Diana Rigg? Flawless. And on the subject of the actresses, another show I want to bring up that isn't really fantasy (unless you regard wildly unrealistic deduction skills as a sort of magical power), Elementary. The girl who plays Margaery also happens to play the lovely Irene Adler. A very difficult character. In the source material, she wasn't even really a villain, just a damn cunning woman. "The woman." The one who got away. There was a lot of sexist overtones with the whole thing, 'not like the other girls' at best, but it was Victorian so not expecting much. Modern adaptations sometimes fail to really advanced the character, and indeed often make her worse by reducing her to part of the rogue's gallery and almost always just a lackey for Moriarty.

So here's the HUGE MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT WARNING.



Spoiler: elementary s1 finale



Irene Adler, in this show, _is_ Moriarty. And wow. Talk about a subversion! I mean, god damn. And that's a tough thing to do, because you have to work both with Irene's character - 'the woman', the one who defeats Sherlock - and work with Moriarty, the one just as cunning, but twice as sinister, his match. She defeats Sherlock, but is defeated by Joan Watson - arguably his human side, in a way. His grounding, his pathos, his protegee. And let's not ignore that in this canon, also a woman (of colour, at that). Very well done, and I don't just say that as someone who didn't like BBC's take on Moriarty. I say that as someone who's favourite character _in anything ever created_ is Moriarty. I was very pleased.


----------



## Philip Overby

Ophiucha makes a great point about Sansa. She's everything that is always characteristically considered wrong with female characters in fantasy. She's demure, does what she is asked, is emotional, and hopelessly devoted. However, she IS a strong character that changes and develops. It's as if Martin is dumping the cliche' on its head. While Sansa isn't a badass or physically strong, she is almost super-human in her emotional strength. Something interesting about A Song of Ice and Fire is that it does take some female characters who look conventionally flat and stereotypical on the surface and molds them into some of the most remarkable characters in the books.

So overall the point of this thread is "How do we improve representation of women in fantasy?" I think the best answer, in my estimation, is to take these cliches that exist and remold them. Same goes with fantasy characters in general.


----------



## saellys

Ophiucha said:


> I won't comment on Arya since I'm still unspoiled in regards to the details but I'm spoiled enough to know she's going to get some character development. But I will say that my favourite character (up to half-way through SoS) is Sansa Stark, because she is a perfect lady, right down to sticking with her fiance despite him being the absolute worst, and yet she is still such a strong character. I love her because it's something we see so rarely - the perfect lady who doesn't fight it unless it's for her life, yet we see has so much more inside of her, we see her hatred of Joffrey and her love of her siblings and her joy at her friendship with Margaery and her (misguided) crush on Loras. We see that despite acting the perfect lady, despite being what anyone else would see as the very typical bland background character who gets to say 'yes milord' and little else in every other fantasy story, GRRM lets her be a perspective character and a Stark. And while I love Brienne and Arya for being fighters, and Cersei for being subversive, I appreciate that he lets us see a very typical woman and still show that she's more than just curtsies and corsets.
> 
> I also love Olenna and Margaery, for similar reasons, though Margaery is more manipulative than Sansa she still never really tries to exceed her station (unlike Cersei who actively desires to be in the 'place' of a man in her world) and Olenna... well, who doesn't love Olenna? Particularly if you're aware of one _particular _spoiler. Plus, Diana Rigg? Flawless. And on the subject of the actresses, another show I want to bring up that isn't really fantasy (unless you regard wildly unrealistic deduction skills as a sort of magical power), Elementary. The girl who plays Margaery also happens to play the lovely Irene Adler. A very difficult character. In the source material, she wasn't even really a villain, just a damn cunning woman. "The woman." The one who got away. There was a lot of sexist overtones with the whole thing, 'not like the other girls' at best, but it was Victorian so not expecting much. Modern adaptations sometimes fail to really advanced the character, and indeed often make her worse by reducing her to part of the rogue's gallery and almost always just a lackey for Moriarty.
> 
> So here's the HUGE MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT WARNING.
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler: elementary s1 finale
> 
> 
> 
> Irene Adler, in this show, _is_ Moriarty. And wow. Talk about a subversion! I mean, god damn. And that's a tough thing to do, because you have to work both with Irene's character - 'the woman', the one who defeats Sherlock - and work with Moriarty, the one just as cunning, but twice as sinister, his match. She defeats Sherlock, but is defeated by Joan Watson - arguably his human side, in a way. His grounding, his pathos, his protegee. And let's not ignore that in this canon, also a woman (of colour, at that). Very well done, and I don't just say that as someone who didn't like BBC's take on Moriarty. I say that as someone who's favourite character _in anything ever created_ is Moriarty. I was very pleased.



All of this. Sansa is one of my favorite characters in anything ever.

Also, the last three episodes of _Elementary_ were some of the finest television I've ever seen, and Natalie Dormer is a boss.


----------



## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> Spoiler: elementary s1 finale
> 
> 
> 
> Irene Adler, in this show, _is_ Moriarty. And wow. Talk about a subversion! I mean, god damn. And that's a tough thing to do, because you have to work both with Irene's character - 'the woman', the one who defeats Sherlock - and work with Moriarty, the one just as cunning, but twice as sinister, his match. She defeats Sherlock, but is defeated by Joan Watson - arguably his human side, in a way. His grounding, his pathos, his protegee. And let's not ignore that in this canon, also a woman (of colour, at that). Very well done, and I don't just say that as someone who didn't like BBC's take on Moriarty. I say that as someone who's favourite character _in anything ever created_ is Moriarty. I was very pleased.



Why did you dislike BBC's Moriarty? I found him incredibly entertaining, like if someone mixed one of James Bond's enemies with a Batman villain. While Elementary's take on Moriarty was interesting and innovative, I like BBC's version better. But then again, I like _Sherlock_ just a bit more than _Elementary_ overall.


----------



## Mindfire

Devor said:


> I think it might be past time to stop with that, Mindfire.



Done with a light hand, it's a useful way of making a point, or getting people to say things they might not otherwise. But if you insist.


----------



## Devor

Ophiucha said:


> But I will say that my favourite character (up to half-way through SoS) is Sansa Stark, because she is a perfect lady, right down to sticking with her fiance despite him being the absolute worst, and yet she is still such a strong character. I love her because it's something we see so rarely - the perfect lady who doesn't fight it unless it's for her life, yet we see has so much more inside of her, we see her hatred of Joffrey and her love of her siblings and her joy at her friendship with Margaery and her (misguided) crush on Loras. We see that despite acting the perfect lady, despite being what anyone else would see as the very typical bland background character who gets to say 'yes milord' and little else in every other fantasy story, GRRM lets her be a perspective character and a Stark. And while I love Brienne and Arya for being fighters, and Cersei for being subversive, I appreciate that he lets us see a very typical woman and still show that she's more than just curtsies and corsets.



I just don't see it.  I haven't seen the show, but she has to be at least a little different in the show because in the book, there's a point where she forgot to even ask about Arya, and we never see any follow up or much time spent worried about her siblings.  She hates, she fears, she tries to plan, but mostly I find her the typical female character without agency, everything happens to her...



Spoiler: Storm of Swords



Even her big escape attempt at Joffrey's wedding, which she thinks was her idea, turns out to have been someone else manipulating her.



I mean, I don't really fault GRRM for it because it's not unreasonable in the circumstances, and it's one weak character out of a cast of so many strong ones.  And she still might be going somewhere cool and we just haven't seen it yet.  But I just don't see it yet, and yet people say they do.


----------



## Chessie

Devor, I'm with you on Sansa. I can only judge her character by the first book though. She seemed stuck up to me and not necessarily interested in her siblings...which in a world like that it would have been nice to see her bond with Arya more. Out of all the Stark children, she resembled Catelyn the most to me in character. I've read a lot of bad rep about Catelyn but I think she's all right. She definitely seems not to make the wisest of choices or stand up for herself but again, it makes sense with the world she lives in.

I've been reading Joe Abercrombie's "Best Served Cold" and I'm in love with the way he's dished (pun intended) out Monza. I love a fierce heroine that can also swing a blade like the best of them. I prefer such heroines over ones like Sansa or Cersei, for instant. Not fantasy but for anyone who has read "Gone With the Wind", Scarlet was fierce in her own right and was not bashful about protecting herself  or her family, which she did have in mind despite it being mostly forced upon her. Perhaps its just my tastes, but women like this rock my literary world. 

Although I can see why some would consider Sansa strong, perhaps because she sticks to her morals and manners despite everything. But I don't think I've read enough to judge her.


----------



## Steerpike

I like Monza Murcatto as well.

I had the same view of Sansa, initially, but I think she's become more complex than that and she's really exhibited some strength and resourcefulness in her own way. At least, that's what I remember. The books came out so far apart it has been a while since I read the last ones.


----------



## saellys

Keep in mind that Sansa is in a situation that robs her of agency. She's a hostage, occupying the classic damsel in distress position without any hope of being rescued, and even when she thinks she's about to be free, she ends up in the same straits (being stuck with Littlefinger is only marginally a step up from being stuck with the Lannisters). Brienne was in this situation, lest we forget, and Jaime came and scooped her up, but no one seems to draw any parallels there. 

In the midst of all this, Sansa is slowly accumulating the knowledge she needs to be the one manipulating rather than the one who gets manipulated. Her femininity/womanly wiles/sexuality are only a small part of that package. She's a strong character because she's growing into more than the whiny, lemon cake-loving little girl from the first book. 

I believe Martin is taking her somewhere awesome and I don't think it's hard to see the progression, and where she'll end up if it continues. Conservatively, I predict that she'll independently control the North by the last book.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

To understand the hidden depths of strength in Sansa's character, you must take her training into account, the Lady she was taught to be. Remember this life lesson we heard her being instructed on, early in her story?

"A Lady's armor is her courtesy."

No matter what has been heaped upon the poor girl she has maintained a quiet strength, keeping a level of composure & self-control that's almost inhuman. How many people could tolerate her circumstances? I feel that her inner strength, in the face of terrible coming events, is going to be a major factor in the future.

The only person that recognizes that strength is Tyrion.

"Lady Sansa, I do believe you'll survive us all."


----------



## Zero Angel

Holy crap I cannot stand Sansa for all the reasons I thought everyone else here would detest her too. 

So the moral of Sansa's story is put up with your lot in life until you luck into somehow coming out being able to manipulate people? Is that what some people are implying here? Because this is the sort of thing that women were only ever supposed to do throughout history. Let the men take center stage and then be the voice behind the curtain. I'm not saying it's not a realistic character, but she makes me sick. 

I thought MAYBE, just MAYBE, she would be kind to Tyrion in more than the stereotypical "women are nice to everyone to their face" bullcrap.

I stopped reading when GRR Martin dropped half the characters from one of the novels (whichever one that was), so maybe she got better after that, but I couldn't stand Sansa and I couldn't stand the churning of my stomach of Littlefinger's handling of her or everything else. Even when she has facts thrown in her face she still lives in this denial of reality. 

I am going to be sick just thinking about how frustrating I found her chapters.


----------



## Steerpike

I don't get the Sansa hate. Whether someone actively likes her or not is a different story, I guess. Here's an interesting discussion of the character:

In Defense of Sansa Stark | Feminist Fiction


----------



## Penpilot

Zero Angel said:


> So the moral of Sansa's story is put up with your lot in life until you luck into somehow coming out being able to manipulate people? Is that what some people are implying here? Because this is the sort of thing that women were only ever supposed to do throughout history. Let the men take center stage and then be the voice behind the curtain. I'm not saying it's not a realistic character, but she makes me sick.




I don't know. Did you take into account that Sansa is, as of the fourth novel, three-and-ten. Thirteen. At thirteen she's had to deal with the loss of her parents (one whose head was literally chopped off in front of her), her siblings, her home and everyone she's ever known in the course of what? Two years? On top of that she's has to learn to live in a hostile environment where she's beaten and degraded and, in the eyes of many, just a way to seize control of the North, a prize. 

After enduring all that, which IMHO would reduce many adults into a blubbering ball of goo curled up in the fetal position, she's managed to keep her dignity, her sense of self, in addition to sticking her neck out to save a drunken knight. 

Not bad for a thirteen-year-old.

This is how I'd characterize her moral. Life doesn't always work out the way you expect. There will be pain and there will be tragedy, and things may seem out of your control. But how you deal with things, how you learn from them, and how you choose to let them change you or not, ultimately defines who you are. 

Notice even after witnessing very bad things by very bad people she expects the best out of those she meets. Maybe that's naivety. Maybe it's stupidity. Maybe it's just because she isn't a cynic yet.

Again, she thirteen. Lots of kids that age are a bit clueless and give too much respect/power to authority figures and haven't found their voice yet. But Sansa's learning her lessons, and if she learns them well, I'm willing to bet when she's like twenty, she'll be someone with some serious clout.


----------



## Devor

I don't have any animosity for Sansa.  I just don't get the love (or the hate).  She seems like the typical character people have been complaining about in this thread.  Worse, it very much feels like GRRM is telling her story to mock her and what she stands for more than anything.

I see Joffrey, and Cersei, and the Hound, and the Tyrells, and Tyrion, and Littlefinger teaching Sansa how foolish she is and how cruel and manipulative everyone else is, but I don't see her growing in a way that will help her to approach the manipulative powers of any of these characters.

With all this teaching, she has so far figured out exactly one detail for herself:  That a lesser Lord was being paid to act the way he was acting.  Maybe that's enough to show an arc that might lead towards giving Sansa her moment, but I don't think it'll be enough to make her a real player in the Game of Thrones.

Everything is happening to her, not of her own doing.  I don't think she's there to grow; she's there to show us how cruel, manipulative and badass everyone else is.


----------



## Kit

Penpilot said:


> I don't know. Did you take into account that Sansa is, as of the fourth novel, three-and-ten. Thirteen. At thirteen she's had to deal with the loss of her parents (one whose head was literally chopped off in front of her), her siblings, her home and everyone she's ever known in the course of what? Two years? On top of that she's has to learn to live in a hostile environment where she's beaten and degraded and, in the eyes of many, just a way to seize control of the North, a prize.



Arya went through the exact same thing, but handled it much differently.

I'm a Sansa-basher.... she's cowardly and passive (always) and self-centered (usually). She embodies a large number of negative so-called "feminine" traits that irritate the crap out of me.

I have more respect for Cersei, for all that the woman is self-centered and EVIL (ALWAYS!). At least Cersei has a backbone and is not passive and helpless.


----------



## Ophiucha

Sansa is, by no means, the icon of feminism in the show (not that any one character is really ideal, either within the show or in a meta sense as they are analysed by the way the writers handled them), but I think she is important because she is a major character who is still what her society deems _feminine_, with all that entails. I often find that 'strong female characters' are, in many ways, women who embody their (and our) society's masculine traits. They have masculine professions, masculine personalities, and while they might not be masculine in appearance, they are often masculine in the worst ways otherwise. By this I mean... I kind of find the way many of these characters are written to be a bit misogynistic? Like, writers will take a strong woman and emphasize that she's "not like the other girls" and have her say things like "other women and their pretty dresses and their pretty boys". And while having a wide range of female characters is great, it just sort of emphasizes this "boys good; girls bad" dichotomy, just switching it up to say "feminine bad; masculine good" while ignoring everything in the (fictional or otherwise) society that teaches girls to be feminine and boys to be masculine.

So I like Sansa because she's a _Stark _who names her huge bloodthirsty wolf 'Lady', who still likes pretty boys even though she's learned that they're not all nice, who was taught from birth to be a perfect lady and sticks with what her father told her no matter how bad things get, who has lost everything - her family, her home, her one chance at power (when Margaery replaces her as Joffrey's fiancÃ©e) - and still can smile, who takes what small acts of rebellion she can without acting out of place. She's passive, she's 'weak', but she is still a fully developed character. And while I love a good warrior woman as much as the next girl, I like seeing the women who are so often ignored. Because our stories prioritize the women who are like men, but throughout history most women have been... like women. It's what they're taught and how they're raised, yet it's only the exceptions who make it into the stories. I like Sansa because, yes, she's a very typical woman. She doesn't poison her lovers or demand to be named heir or cut her hair short and take up arms. She's every other woman in Westeros who GRRM never even bothers to name.



> “Knights die in battle,” Catelyn reminded her. Brienne looked at her with those blue and beautiful eyes. “As ladies die in childbed. No one sings songs about them.”



I feel like Sansa is a rare exception. I appreciate it. I understand why you wouldn't like her character; in a series of political manipulations, assassinations, massacres, frost giants, the undead, and dragons, a little girl who seems little more than a pawn for others to play with is hardly going to be anyone's focus. But I am very grateful that she is such a prominent character in the story despite that.


----------



## Philip Overby

Mild spoilers?

I didn't realize there were such diverse opinions on Sansa. Interesting. I agree that on the surface she is exactly what is problematic with the "damsel in distress." But as the story goes on, she starts to understand how to play the game better than anyone else. She's sitting at the learning tree of some of the best master manipulators in all of the realm: Cersei, Margery, Tyrion, and Littlefinger. While Arya trains to be some sort of master assassin, Sansa in turn is soaking in how to play the political game from some of the best. I'm sure that's intentional. How it will play into the overall story is something I'm interested to see.

She also starts to see that all pretty knights and handsome kings aren't what the stories told her. She learns that ugly, horrifying men like the Hound are the true knights.

The article Steerpike linked above is a must-read for anyone who hates (or for that matter loves) Sansa. Maybe you can glean while others appreciate her more.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Ophiucha said:


> We're also _wildly _off topic, guys, so here's a topic: female goons, zombies, background characters. Anyone else notice this? You have a hoarde of zombies, odds are 80% of them will be (ex-?)men. You go into a dungeon in your standard RPG and often all of the generic barbarians and bandits will be men. (In the Bethesda [Elder Scrolls, Fallout] games, they often have a trait that gives you a 10% bonus against the opposite sex. Since I always play as a girl, I always pick this trait since like 7 out of 10 enemies in the game are male.) Your storm troopers, red shirts, etc. - almost always men. I get why females aren't always major characters (even if I disagree with it), but I can't fathom why they turn up so rarely among the nameless drones of lambs being brought to the slaughter, you know?



I saw a review for a REALLY creepy survival horror game that took place in a in a defunct in a defunct insane asylum that had female adversaries.  Granted, they were scantily clad, creepy, faceless female adversaries in nurses uniforms, but partial credit is better than none, huh?  But, yeah, still lambs to the slaughter.


----------



## Penpilot

Kit said:


> Arya went through the exact same thing, but handled it much differently.



Yes, but notice how the traits that many admire, and which people point to as being strong traits, gets her and others into trouble time and time again. That's a bit of naivety/stupidity on her part to pair up with Sansa's. To me they're the two sides of the same coin. Both have flaws that get them into situations where they're over their heads by action or inaction. I can't remember specifics, but I'm sure there are a few innocent people who would be alive if they never met Arya.




Ophiucha said:


> I often find that 'strong female characters' are, in many ways, women who embody their (and our) society's masculine traits. They have masculine professions, masculine personalities, and while they might not be masculine in appearance, they are often masculine in the worst ways otherwise. By this I mean... I kind of find the way many of these characters are written to be a bit misogynistic? Like, writers will take a strong woman and emphasize that she's "not like the other girls" and have her say things like "other women and their pretty dresses and their pretty boys". And while having a wide range of female characters is great, it just sort of emphasizes this "boys good; girls bad" dichotomy, just switching it up to say "feminine bad; masculine good" while ignoring everything in the (fictional or otherwise) society that teaches girls to be feminine and boys to be masculine.



Yeah, I've been thinking about this. If a female character punches somebody out, generally speaking, why are they automatically assumed to be a strong female character? Many probably think Arya and Brienne are strong female characters because they can kick arse in the male playground. I don't think that's true. I think it's their mental make up, their ability to endure and overcome the hardships that come their way that make them strong. I mean what if Brienne with all her physical skills intact went home to an abusive husband and withered in his presence? If that were the case despite her being a kick arse knight, she'd still be a weak character. 


Sansa plays the game on her turf, politics and the court. She doesn't take up arms because it'd be foolish. She's useless on the battlefield. And I don't think she should be judged on those terms. Judge her on how she preforms in the court when she gets to play by the rules she knows.


----------



## Steerpike

Some people assume the only way to have a strong female character is to basically write a male character but call the character female. That's a mistake in and of itself. It's not like you can't have a strong female character operating within traditional gender roles.


----------



## Zero Angel

It's not Sansa's femininity that irks me, so the article linked didn't really have anything to offer me (although I'm concerned when you have fans that want characters to be raped—That's not an appropriate punishment). What irks me more than anything is her stupidity and naivete.  Her complete and utter denial of the real world for the world she wants it to be. She is a standard-fantasy girl in a dark-fantasy and it is completely insane. Maybe that's Martin's real inspiration for her character: let's take a girl from a normal fantasy and throw her in the crap. 



Spoiler: ASOIAF: Alayne Stone and Robert Arryn



And the complete and utter defenselessness drives me beyond insane and made the entire series too much to stomach. Even tolerating the little kid's molestation of her drove a spike through my eye when I read the words. Seriously? She's so defenseless some little brat (Robert Arryn) is allowed to molest her at his every whim?



A lot of people parade ASOIAF as being super-great with all these great female characters. But you have all these great female characters being tortured, maimed, raped, used and otherwise abused. No one has any problems with that? It's like he builds these characters up just to screw them over.

Again, people say, "Well she's 13", but you're probably thinking of modern 13 year olds. 13 was pretty much an adult in medieval times (which ASOIAF is pseudo-medieval at least), and 13 with an education and having all these horrible things happening to her? I expect SOME growth unless she's secretly a moron like Hodor. 

And actually, I could tolerate all of the other crap, but the complete lack of growth (at least, that's how I characterize it, apparently other people are characterizing the same thing as having considerable growth) makes her annoying as a character and unbearable as a POV. The complete lack of agency is also unbearable as a POV.

I know we got off on the wrong foot since she was such a jerk to her sister and her sister's dog, but I had half-expected her to realize RIGHT THEN that Joffrey was a jag, and no, instead she blamed Arya for everything and acted her usual spoiled self.


----------



## Kit

Ophiucha said:


> I often find that 'strong female characters' are, in many ways, women who embody their (and our) society's masculine traits. They have masculine professions, masculine personalities, and while they might not be masculine in appearance, they are often masculine in the worst ways otherwise .



I reject many presumptions of what qualifies as "masculine" and "feminine".

I like a lot of things that traditional purists might categorize as "masculine"- martial arts and motorcycles being two of the most glaring. But since I am a woman, am I "masculine" because I like motorcycles? Or is motorcycling becoming more "feminine" because I and other women like it? Or is it the categorizations themselves that are flawed? I pick "C". Whatever I do or am is feminine, because I am female. Or better yet, let's stop pigeonholing every concept on earth according to some whacked out gender stereotypes.


----------



## Feo Takahari

On the abuse thing: I maintain that it's entirely possible to turn a long-suffering wife into a strong female character.


----------



## Ophiucha

@Zero, I _definitely _don't think Martin is highly progressive from a meta stand point, but as his books are arguably the most popular fantasy series to have a relatively large number of female characters with diverse enough personalities and roles, it's kind of the easiest to talk about? Like, we could have a discussion about the role of femininity in _Paladin of Souls_, a very valid discussion at that without any of the 'also the author writes in a lot of awful crap', but then I think only a couple of the people in this thread right now have ever read it. Even on a forum specifically for fantasy, it's hard to assume that everyone has read or seen anything besides _Lord of the Rings_ and _A Song of Ice and Fire_, and having a discussion about LOTR would last a few sentences for all the women get to do in that story (even in the movies, expanded though their roles are).

@A.E. Lowan, Hmmm... Silent Hill, maybe? There are honestly a couple of games that fit the bill for that description, which is weird, since the description is 'zombie sexy nurses'. Oh, video game industry. You do your thing.

@Kit, from a personal level, I agree. I don't think of myself as less feminine for my interest in blacksmithing or mechanics. But there is still a 'societal norm' about these things - particularly in fantasy stories where these things are often very clear cut by nature of the worldbuilding process. And I just don't like the way that the standard 'strong female character' is almost always into blacksmithing and mechanics and never gardening or needle work. Sure, if she's the main character of a standard fantasy epic, being in some way... fighting-capable is perhaps a necessity. But, hey, cooking requires some serious knife skills and skirts are easier to lift up to reveal a dagger. But they tend to be more interested in whatever the society's standard masculine endeavours are, and they tend to have back stories like 'I was so bored with a woman's life, cooking and cleaning, so I ran away from home and disguised myself as a man' and just once I'd like to see one that was like 'I loved cooking and cleaning but one day my house was invaded so I shoved my butcher's knife into his shoulder and beat him to death with a broom stick'.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Speaking to Feo's point, there is actually a long history of a taking an abused woman an putting her into a position of incredible inner strength.  Take the classic story "A Jury of Her Peers," for example.  I don't know how many of our folks have read it, but it provides an excellent example of subversive rebellion against crushing tyranny.


----------



## Philip Overby

Zero Angel said:


> It's not Sansa's femininity that irks me, so the article linked didn't really have anything to offer me (although I'm concerned when you have fans that want characters to be raped—That's not an appropriate punishment). What irks me more than anything is her stupidity and naivete.  Her complete and utter denial of the real world for the world she wants it to be. She is a standard-fantasy girl in a dark-fantasy and it is completely insane. Maybe that's Martin's real inspiration for her character: let's take a girl from a normal fantasy and throw her in the crap.



I don't see the difference between what Sansa endures and what other characters endure. Almost every character has horrible things happen to them. Take Theon for instance...

The series is popular for a reason. People love to see struggling people overcome the odds. Sometimes Martin doesn't allow this, making it even more heart-breaking.

There are other "standard" fantasy type characters in the series. I mean Eddard is a man with unshakable honor. Pretty standard in fantasy. He reminds me a lot of Lancelot in that he has a flaw that causes him lots of problems.





> A lot of people parade ASOIAF as being super-great with all these great female characters. But you have all these great female characters being tortured, maimed, raped, used and otherwise abused. No one has any problems with that? It's like he builds these characters up just to screw them over.



You could say the same for the male characters. I actually DO have a problem with these characters suffering so horribly. That's why I hope they pull through. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. 

I think being lulled into a false sense of "good will triumph" often interests readers of the series and watchers of the show. The "anything can happen" way the story unfolds makes readers engaged. The main thing Martin does that is successful is not that he has this dark, grimy, horrible world where horrible things happen to people. It's that he makes people care about what happens to the characters. He does this with different techniques. Sansa may be the type of character that evokes a horror movie victim: "Why doesn't she run? Geez!" She tends to be more infuriating in the first book. Like another person said, her civility is her weapon that she hones. She doesn't fight, so she has to survive in other ways. I'm hoping her arc pays off in the end. If it does, it'll be by far one of the most satisfying. To see Sansa evolve from a naive girl is akin to watching someone grow up before your eyes.

@Kit: In the realm of Martin's world, there are certain notions of what men do and what women do. Women don't rule. Cersei often bemoans this problem. Whereas Dany is a female leader who doesn't care about what the world thinks of these preconceived notions. She rejects them wholeheartedly. 

I think in the real , modern world it's a whole different issue. In the realm of the story world, the definitions make sense in context of the world they're living in.


----------



## Penpilot

Zero Angel said:


> Again, people say, "Well she's 13", but you're probably thinking of modern 13 year olds. 13 was pretty much an adult in medieval times (which ASOIAF is pseudo-medieval at least), and 13 with an education and having all these horrible things happening to her? I expect SOME growth unless she's secretly a moron like Hodor.



Thirteen may be considered adult back in medieval times, but it doesn't mean their mental and emotional development was any greater than that of a modern 13yr-old.  As for growth. Either you're not far enough in to the story or you're not seeing it, because it's there. It's not as overt as shouting "No" when before she was shouting "Yes".  Just from the first book to the second book there's a dramatic change to her emotionally, cracks in her wall of naivety. 



Kit said:


> I reject many presumptions of what qualifies as "masculine" and "feminine".
> 
> I like a lot of things that traditional purists might categorize as "masculine"- martial arts and motorcycles being two of the most glaring. But since I am a woman, am I "masculine" because I like motorcycles?



No this doesn't mean you're masculine. It just means you're interested in things that are traditionally considered masculine. Just like babysitting may be considered a traditionally feminine task, me liking to do it doesn't mean I'm any more feminine. You can reject the traditional labels, but it doesn't erase them. They've been there a long time, and it's going to take some time for them to fade.


----------



## Chessie

Sansa is 13...but so was Dany when she was married by force and look at all the crap she had to deal with. The difference between the two is night and day. The little I did read about Sansa, it seems to me I only got a peek at her before she grows. Although in the same book, Dany exploded with self-awareness and survival power. If anyone has survived, its her. Granted, everyone matures differently but still, both girls were pampered growing up and they turned out quite differently. The one thing they do have in common though is manipulation of men, which seems to be a theme in ASOIF.

I think femininity is being confused for weakness of character in Sansa's situation. Being a lady myself, femininity isn't just about minding your manners, smelling good and looking pretty. Its about being empowered, not a doormat. The argument can be made that the world of Westeros limits women, but when most of them are using sex to get what they want that's surely irritating. 

One of the reasons I stopped at book one was because of the way women are treated. Even badass dragon-lady reached self-awareness through finding herself sexually...and at 13 years old...I'm shocked that people are ok with that. Everyone I know (except for my husband oddly enough) is wrapped up in ASOIF. Then they get pissed when someone dies. Why not get pissed about all the other crap that happens in Martin's world? Rape? Torture? Child abuse? Is that ok? 

Anyway, the point of this thread is about the direction of women in fantasy. I say there can still be heroines that wield power and are ladies. Weakness does not mean femininity. Women bear children, raise families, go through all sorts of hormonal crap all the time. We're strong and for once I'd like to read about a woman, that isn't butch or manipulative, be a heroine in fantasy that shows females are capable of using their brains.

Edit: I think Dany is just as feminine as Sansa, even if she's a "fighter" type of character.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> I don't get the Sansa hate. Whether someone actively likes her or not is a different story, I guess. Here's an interesting discussion of the character:
> 
> In Defense of Sansa Stark | Feminist Fiction



I read that article and I don't know why, but it makes me want to hate Sansa out of pure contrariness. lol


----------



## glutton

Penpilot said:


> I mean what if Brienne with all her physical skills intact went home to an abusive husband and withered in his presence? If that were the case despite her being a kick arse knight, she'd still be a weak character.



Yes, but that would be a rather unusual character in the first place...


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Chesterama said:


> Sansa is 13...but so was Dany when she was married by force and look at all the crap she had to deal with. The difference between the two is night and day. The little I did read about Sansa, it seems to me I only got a peek at her before she grows. Although in the same book, Dany exploded with self-awareness and survival power. If anyone has survived, its her. Granted, everyone matures differently but still, both girls were pampered growing up and they turned out quite differently.


Dany was never pampered. She was a refugee for as long as she could remember, always on the move to avoid Baratheon assassins. Further, she was raised by an abusive brother who considered her no more than a tool for reclamation of the crown. The only commonality of their upbringing would be they never wanted for much.


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## saellys

Yeah, Daenerys reacted to hardship differently from Sansa due to their wildly divergent upbringings. Comparison between them is unfair. 

Furthermore, I read Daenerys's realization of autonomy and power as a breakthrough when she struck Viserys, and not before. That was the moment when she understood what she had inside her (not just Drogo's kid). 

Sansa's lack of agency was a situational decision made by the author, and I believe the intent is to subvert the trope she inhabits, and gradually give her the tools she needs to save herself. Your mileage upon reading may vary, and if you don't see the arc of her growth, no one can make you see it. I'm also not going to rag on anyone too hard for missing details in such a massive series; I didn't know Loras and Renly were gay until the show!


----------



## Kit

saellys said:


> Yeah, Daenerys reacted to hardship differently from Sansa due to their wildly divergent upbringings. Comparison between them is unfair.



Yet Sansa and Arya had the same upbringing.....



saellys said:


> I'm also not going to rag on anyone too hard for missing details in such a massive series; I didn't know Loras and Renly were gay until the show!



It was never explicitly stated in the books, just hinted at. That made me go  as well.


----------



## saellys

Kit said:


> Yet Sansa and Arya had the same upbringing.....



But Arya largely rejected her gender role, and was in a position to escape when the proverbial poo hit the fan in King's Landing, while Sansa was not. The differences between the Stark sisters are many and clearly stated in the books.


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## Chessie

Dany was pampered. Being called a princess everyday and having slaves bathe you is pampering, refugee or not. I want someone to bathe and dress me!  If we're talking about femininity, comparing Arya and Sansa doesn't fit since Arya rejects it. I used Dany because she still retains her female identity while rejecting the second rate place women hold in her world.


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## saellys

Chesterama said:


> Dany was pampered. Being called a princess everyday and having slaves bathe you is pampering, refugee or not. I want someone to bathe and dress me!



She was also physically and emotionally abused throughout her childhood. Sansa got treated to a noble lady's upbringing without the constant fear of waking the dragon.


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## Chessie

Saellys, you're absolutely right about that....minor detail.  Like I said, comparison of Sansa and Dany was more to show that, to be badass, a woman doesn't have to give up her feminine traits, like Arya. But I wasn't very clear about that.


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## saellys

That I totally agree with. Whatever other failings Martin has, he at least wrote quite a few power-wielding women who conform to their gender roles. And while Dany is a certifiable BAMF right now, I'm convinced Sansa will be too; her arc will just take longer to reach that point.


----------



## Ophiucha

saellys said:


> without the constant fear of waking the dragon.



*coughs* Viserys was no dragon. Fire cannot kill a dragon.

But yes, Sansa had a relatively happy life up until the end of Book 1/Season 1, whereas Daenerys lived in constant fear of her brother. Plus, their engagements/marriages were completely unlike one another. Dany, already used to fear and some degree of servitude, took her position of power as an opportunity to free herself from her brother. Whereas Sansa was already powerful, as a Lady and second in line for heir of Winterfell, and considered herself as free as a woman could expect... only to be engaged to a man who made her life hell. Marriage broke Dany's bonds, but it gave Sansa her first pair of shackles. Both of their husbands are cruel, yet their very different backgrounds dictated how their marriages affected their lives.

Margaery sort of falls between the two, and I think is quite the interesting character herself. She sort of falls into the same general group as Cersei in terms of the roles of women, yet she is far more accepting of her status (and manipulative of it) than Cersei is, who I often feel simply wants to _be_ a man. She's happy ruling while Joffrey is underage; she'd like to be recognized by her father as equal to her brothers (well, Jaime anyway); she has very little interest in her wifely duties or being remarried after her first husband's death. Sansa never seems to want any power, Margaery wants the power that being the Queen grants, Cersei wants the power that being the _King_ grants. And Daenerys is sort of the one who sees nothing masculine about absolute monarchy to begin with.


----------



## Penpilot

Chesterama said:


> Sansa is 13...but so was Dany when she was married by force and look at all the crap she had to deal with. The difference between the two is night and day. The little I did read about Sansa, it seems to me I only got a peek at her before she grows. Although in the same book, Dany exploded with self-awareness and survival power. If anyone has survived, its her. Granted, everyone matures differently but still, both girls were pampered growing up and they turned out quite differently. The one thing they do have in common though is manipulation of men, which seems to be a theme in ASOIF.



In terms of purely writing, if Sana rose to power much like Dany at the same age, it would be redundant. Martin shows a cross-section of different types of characters. Dany's rise is quick, Sansa's slow. If they both rose at the same time, might as well edit out one because their stories would be too similar. 



glutton said:


> Yes, but that would be a rather unusual character in the first place...



I don't know. I don't think it'd be too unusual. I remember reading a news story about a female police officers being dominated by abusive husband. I can't recall specific instances, but physical and mental abuse isn't limited to those who are physically weak. I mean there are instances where a husband is abused by a physically smaller wife. Again never assume physical strength equals mental strength or that physical weakness is mental weakness too.


----------



## glutton

Penpilot said:


> I don't know. I don't think it'd be too unusual. I remember reading a news story about a female police officers being dominated by abusive husband. I can't recall specific instances, but physical and mental abuse isn't limited to those who are physically weak. I mean there are instances where a husband is abused by a physically smaller wife. Again never assume physical strength equals mental strength or that physical weakness is mental weakness too.



It would be unusual as in 'unexpected of a kick-ass female warrior character in fantasy', whether it's realistic is another matter.


----------



## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> Whereas Sansa was already powerful, as a Lady and second in line for heir of Winterfell



Actually _Bran_ was second in line to inherit Winterfell. Sansa may be the second oldest, but Bran is the second oldest _boy_, and inheritance goes to the male children first. Rickon would inherit Winterfell before Sansa would.


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## Ophiucha

True, though spoilers for season/book 2 in regards to the how the rest of the world views that in particular. Also, the first daughter still has a lot of obligations and power. She's the one who was already betrothed, as opposed to her sister who had no such obligation (yet), and she still technically has the power to potentially inherit Winterfell for her husband, if not for herself. That sort of thing happened often enough, particularly when the next oldest sons are as young as Bran and Rickon are compared to Robb. (And she'd still inherit before Jon Snow.)


----------



## A. E. Lowan

And because I must bring Joss to the table...
Joss Whedon "Pissed Off" By Lack of Female Superheroes In Movies | The Mary Sue


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## saellys

Then he should have put some in _Avengers_!


----------



## Devor

Apparently he's a big fan of Wasp, but I'm hoping for Miss Marvel.


----------



## glutton

Red She Hulk.

...mostly joking...


----------



## Zero Angel

Other than the females of the X-Men, I can't think of any female Marvel character that I'm interested in. I mean, Black Cat and Ultimate Carnage were cool in Spider-Man, but they don't really fit in very well outside of Spider-Man. I don't know anything about Miss Marvel and I always found the Wasp underwhelming. I thought it was a shame that Black Widow didn't have a super-soldier background for the Avengers, but maybe they will retcon it in the upcoming Winter Soldier movie. 

Am I forgetting someone cool? 

DC has Wonder Woman, but they've been doing their best to drive away all female readers of comics as of late. I guess it wouldn't be bad if women that were in teams got their own movie franchises. It worked for Wolverine (although he's always been a bit of a loner).


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## Mindfire

saellys said:


> Then he should have put some in _Avengers_!



Black Widow was present. And she was pretty cool.


----------



## Chessie

glutton said:


> Red She Hulk.
> 
> ...mostly joking...



THAT would be cheese upon cheese! Muahaha!


----------



## Mindfire

Zero Angel said:


> DC has Wonder Woman, but they've been doing their best to drive away all female readers of comics as of late. I guess it wouldn't be bad if women that were in teams got their own movie franchises. It worked for Wolverine (although he's always been a bit of a loner).



Wonder Woman as a character, despite how popular and recognizable she is, has legit problems that make her hard to adapt. For one thing, she doesn't have a solidified identity like Batman and Superman do. There is no real Wonder Woman canon, no impressive villains, even her backstory is muddled and changed every ten years. Who's her archenemy? Cheetah? Ares? Hades? No one seems to know. Is she a demigod? A homunculus given life and power by the Greek Gods? A super-spy? A diplomat? Depends on the decade. The _facade_ of the character is an American icon. But behind that? There is no "definitive" take on Wonder Woman. The character has been so badly handled since her inception that she has no real core. Superman is all about hope and inspiration. Batman is all about justice and vengeance. What is Wonder Woman about? Despite her being part of DC's trinity along with the other two characters, nobody seems to know. Well, actually I take that back. DC/WB's animation department seems to know. In animation, Wonder Woman has been handled very well. But outside of that, nobody has a clue. And that saddens me because Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are the Kirk, Spock, and McCoy of superheroes. Superman and Batman may get a duo movie if Man of Steel does well, but we'll never see the whole trio until someone figures out how to do Wonder Woman right. Here's a start: cast Liv Tyler.


----------



## saellys

Mindfire said:


> Black Widow was present. And she was pretty cool.



Less superhero (per Joss's complaint), more total BAMF. Zero Angel mentioned she didn't have the super-soldier background this time and is, as far as we all know, just really great at her job. Not trying to split hairs or anything, but Joss says there aren't enough female superheros after making a superhero movie where eighty percent of the main cast was male. Even Agent Hill felt like an afterthought. 

If he really wants to do something about the problem, he could start by adapting _Runaways_, a series in which he's already invested.


----------



## Mindfire

saellys said:


> Less superhero (per Joss's complaint), more total BAMF. Zero Angel mentioned she didn't have the super-soldier background this time and is, as far as we all know, just really great at her job. Not trying to split hairs or anything, but Joss says there aren't enough female superheros after making a superhero movie where eighty percent of the main cast was male. Even Agent Hill felt like an afterthought.
> 
> If he really wants to do something about the problem, he could start by adapting _Runaways_, a series in which he's already invested.



Well, the Avengers were mostly male by necessity. Are you really going to cut out Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, or Thor for Wasp or Miss Marvel? The only one I think they could have switched out was Hawkeye, since he didn't do much anyway. But then you'd have the fans crying bloody murder. And I wouldn't consider Agent Hill a part of the main cast. I'd call her a side character. And screen time was stretched thin as it was, so I think they can be forgiven for not giving her more of it.


----------



## saellys

Not suggesting switching anyone out (and sure as hell not Thor), and I know Joss was in somewhat a bind considering how much was already established that needed to go into the film. He did have an astonishing amount of creative control, though; he got to pick the villain, among many other details. Bet he could have figured something out. 

I see him pay lip service to this issue in interviews all the time, and when it regards something as specific as superhero movies, one of which he wrote and directed, and he apparently thinks it's sad that his kid could only point to two female characters, but not sad enough to have inserted more female characters, it comes off a bit feeble.

Also, restricting my statistics to just the actual Avengers Initiative members plus Loki makes the main cast 85% male.


----------



## Mindfire

Well, rumor is the guy who wrote Man of Steel wants to do a Wonder Woman film.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> Wonder Woman as a character, despite how popular and recognizable she is, has legit problems that make her hard to adapt. For one thing, she doesn't have a solidified identity like Batman and Superman do. There is no real Wonder Woman canon, no impressive villains, even her backstory is muddled and changed every ten years. Who's her archenemy? Cheetah? Ares? Hades? No one seems to know. Is she a demigod? A homunculus given life and power by the Greek Gods? A super-spy? A diplomat? Depends on the decade. The _facade_ of the character is an American icon. But behind that? There is no "definitive" take on Wonder Woman. The character has been so badly handled since her inception that she has no real core. Superman is all about hope and inspiration. Batman is all about justice and vengeance. What is Wonder Woman about? Despite her being part of DC's trinity along with the other two characters, nobody seems to know. Well, actually I take that back. DC/WB's animation department seems to know. In animation, Wonder Woman has been handled very well. But outside of that, nobody has a clue. And that saddens me because Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are the Kirk, Spock, and McCoy of superheroes. Superman and Batman may get a duo movie if Man of Steel does well, but we'll never see the whole trio until someone figures out how to do Wonder Woman right. Here's a start: cast Liv Tyler.



Just throwing ideas out there, but she might work well as DC's darker counterpart to Thor--a walking anachronism from a time when justice and violence were closely intertwined. She may recognize that someone who pulls out a gun and robs a bank is committing a misdeed, but she might not get why it's not acceptable to kill him for it. ("He was threatening innocents with a weapon!") Mix in the whole "can block bullets" thing, and you've got someone trying to do what she thinks is the right thing, with the power to actually do it, in a society where she may be feared or even resented for her efforts.


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> Just throwing ideas out there, but she might work well as DC's darker counterpart to Thor--a walking anachronism from a time when justice and violence were closely intertwined. She may recognize that someone who pulls out a gun and robs a bank is committing a misdeed, but she might not get why it's not acceptable to kill him for it. ("He was threatening innocents with a weapon!") Mix in the whole "can block bullets" thing, and you've got someone trying to do what she thinks is the right thing, with the power to actually do it, in a society where she may be feared or even resented for her efforts.



An interesting take, but in my personal opinion, making Wonder Woman dark kinda defeats the point of the character. I agree that out of the Trinity, she's the one most likely to use lethal force, but I don't think she'd do it so cavalierly. Your suggestion seems to make her into nothing more than a woman with Superman's powers, Batman's attitude, and a willingness to kill. I think that's the wrong approach. Wonder Woman's personality needs to make her distinct from Superman and Batman while complementing them both in the same way that they complement each other. That's what makes the trinity work. It is, as I said, the Kirk-Spock-McCoy of superheroes. Simply determine who fills what role, and their interactions will write themselves.


----------



## Mindfire

As for who takes what role, there are several ways you could write it. My favorite version has Batman, cold, calculating, and pragmatic, in the "Spock" role, while Wonder Woman takes the "McCoy" role and Superman takes the "Kirk" role. This scenario makes Wonder Woman a maternal figure who cares more about the practical matter of standing up for the oppressed and disenfranchised than Batman's vengeance or Superman's idealism. Superman would then be (as he looks to be portrayed in Man of Steel) committed to the ideal of heroism and determined to help humanity but at the same time feeling detached from it. His position as the "balance" between Wonder Woman and Batman would also make him the de facto leader, which he traditionally is.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Mindfire said:


> As for who takes what role, there are several ways you could write it. My favorite version has Batman, cold, calculating, and pragmatic, in the "Spock" role, while Wonder Woman takes the "McCoy" role and Superman takes the "Kirk" role. This scenario makes Wonder Woman a maternal figure who cares more about the practical matter of standing up for the oppressed and disenfranchised than Batman's vengeance or Superman's idealism. Superman would then be (as he looks to be portrayed in Man of Steel) committed to the ideal of heroism and determined to help humanity but at the same time feeling detached from it. His position as the "balance" between Wonder Woman and Batman would also make him the de facto leader, which he traditionally is.



Getting off-topic, but I think Superman works best as Clark Kent in flight (and in underwear)--that is to say, while the coolest Batmen have generally been those who think of themselves as apart from humanity despite just being very smart and well-trained humans, the coolest Supermen have generally been those who think of themselves as human despite coming from another planet.

(It says volumes that I don't have a really cool Wonder Woman to throw in here. I only really know her from the Justice League cartoons, and I never thought her portrayal there was especially deep or interesting.)


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> (It says volumes that I don't have a really cool Wonder Woman to throw in here. I only really know her from the Justice League cartoons, and I never thought her portrayal there was especially deep or interesting.)



Believe it or not, those cartoons are actually one of the best and most popular portrayals of her out there. Now what does that say? But let me see if I can come up with something. Using your words as a template:


> the coolest _______ have generally been those who think of themselves as _________ despite __________.



The coolest Wonder Women have generally been those who think of themselves as advocates for peace, truth, and fairness, despite being trained warriors from a royal heritage willing to use lethal force if necessary.

Not quite as good I suppose, but it's a start? I'm curious. What do the female posters think Wonder Woman should be?


----------



## Penpilot

While we're on the topic of Wonder Woman, has anyone seen this trailer for a fan Wonder Woman movie? It's not bad at all. Wonder Woman Fan Film Trailer - YouTube


----------



## A. E. Lowan

While Live Tyler as Wonder Woman gives me all happy tingles, we ARE talking about mixing Marvel an DC, which I'm not too sure is kosher - but damn it would be cool.

That being said, wasn't there news about Joss bringing in Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver for Avengers 2?


----------



## Mindfire

Penpilot said:


> While we're on the topic of Wonder Woman, has anyone seen this trailer for a fan Wonder Woman movie? It's not bad at all. Wonder Woman Fan Film Trailer - YouTube



Actually I thought it was kinda meh.


----------



## Ophiucha

Wonder Woman... yeah, I want to love her, but damn she is handled poorly by the writers and directors who make her stuff. There are a few gems in the rough, don't get me wrong, but I basically gave up on her after the 2009 film, which had a lot of 'post-feminist' messages and _blatantly _making Wonder Woman a strawman feminist (the writers have her overreacting to _everything_ a man does or says while kind of just dismissing the actual acts of sexism that she witnesses or experiences). I won't get into the whole plot, but the film ends with Wonder Woman getting herself a man and them opening up the land of the Amazons to the world of men so that they might 'live as women', which is just... ugh. The only good parts of that movie was Nathan Fillion voicing the love interest and this scene: 






Liv Tyler would make a good Wonder Woman, provided they actually make a film for her in the next twenty years. Though I'd personally vote for Gina Torres, if casting choices were made via election. She is basically Wonder Woman already, all she needs is the costume. (Not the one they used for the TV pilot a couple of years ago, though. That one was dreadful.)


----------



## Kit

Ophiucha said:


> Though I'd personally vote for Gina Torres, if casting choices were made via election. She is basically Wonder Woman already, all she needs is the costume.



Good choice. Gina has muscles. I hate it when somebody tries to sell me an anorexic movie star with biceps the diameter of plastic drinking straws as a superhero.


----------



## Devor

saellys said:


> Not suggesting switching anyone out (and sure as hell not Thor), and I know Joss was in somewhat a bind considering how much was already established that needed to go into the film. He did have an astonishing amount of creative control, though; he got to pick the villain, among many other details. Bet he could have figured something out.
> 
> I see him pay lip service to this issue in interviews all the time, and when it regards something as specific as superhero movies, one of which he wrote and directed, and he apparently thinks it's sad that his kid could only point to two female characters, but not sad enough to have inserted more female characters, it comes off a bit feeble.
> 
> Also, restricting my statistics to just the actual Avengers Initiative members plus Loki makes the main cast 85% male.



I don't know.  Avengers was full of A-list heroes, and both Wasp and Miss Marvel are B-listers. That's kind of a legacy issue.  Wasp would've been especially tough because she's so tied into Ant Man.  And Miss Marvel's movie rights only just came back into Marvel's possession - they've been buying them back because of how well the movie did.

But of the Marvel B-listers, I think Miss Marvel is the closest to moving up, in part because of Whedon's introduction of the SWORD space station and the way her character was featured in the Disney Avengers TV show.  I honestly think a good movie could fix up her story enough to push her up - and since she's tied so heavily into space and aliens, it's almost like there's a rogues gallery waiting for a hero.  Well, maybe.


----------



## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> Wonder Woman... yeah, I want to love her, but damn she is handled poorly by the writers and directors who make her stuff. There are a few gems in the rough, don't get me wrong, but I basically gave up on her after the 2009 film, which had a lot of 'post-feminist' messages and _blatantly _making Wonder Woman a strawman feminist (the writers have her overreacting to _everything_ a man does or says while kind of just dismissing the actual acts of sexism that she witnesses or experiences). I won't get into the whole plot, but the film ends with Wonder Woman getting herself a man and them opening up the land of the Amazons to the world of men so that they might 'live as women', which is just... ugh. The only good parts of that movie was Nathan Fillion voicing the love interest and this scene:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Liv Tyler would make a good Wonder Woman, provided they actually make a film for her in the next twenty years. Though I'd personally vote for Gina Torres, if casting choices were made via election. She is basically Wonder Woman already, all she needs is the costume. (Not the one they used for the TV pilot a couple of years ago, though. That one was dreadful.)



For all it's worth, I liked the 2009 Wonder Woman. What exactly did you dislike about the Amazons revealing themselves to the earth? The fact that the Amazons hold themselves separate from and above "man's world" is their society's greatest flaw and is _supposed_ to be seen as a bad thing, much like the isolationist brand of feminism I mentioned earlier. The fact that they chose to move away from that sends the message that your ideals do no good if you stay on a mountaintop somewhere and look down on everyone. You have to go out there and actively make the world a better place. This is what Wonder Woman learns by the end of the film. And she also learns not to look down on an entire demographic group just because some of them do bad things. 

Also, the Amazons were unfairly restricting the lives of their sisters by forcing them to live on the island and never leave. Suppose some of them actually wanted to have families (a point the movie directly addressed)?


----------



## Mindfire

Kit said:


> Good choice. Gina has muscles. I hate it when somebody tries to sell me an anorexic movie star with biceps the diameter of plastic drinking straws as a superhero.



Ehhh... Gina Torres looks a bit old to be Wonder Woman. Hippolyta maybe.


----------



## Mindfire

Also, it might be worth noting that the Wonder Woman film was written by Gail Simone.


----------



## glutton

Alexandra Daddario should be Wonder Woman.


----------



## Mindfire

glutton said:


> Alexandra Daddario should be Wonder Woman.



You're joking, of course.


----------



## glutton

Mindfire said:


> You're joking, of course.



She looked good for it in Percy Jackson 1, might have slimmed down a bit too much since then though.


----------



## Mindfire

glutton said:


> She looked good for it in Percy Jackson 1, might have slimmed down a bit too much since then though.



Looking right isn't enough. It has to be someone with proven acting ability. And I was no impressed with her performace as Annabeth. But then again, I wasn't impressed with Percy Jackson as a whole. It's up there with The Last Airbender in terms of bad adaptations.


----------



## glutton

Mindfire said:


> It has to be someone with proven acting ability.



She was in Texas Chainsaw! *shuts up*


----------



## Zero Angel

Devor said:


> I don't know.  Avengers was full of A-list heroes, and both Wasp and Miss Marvel are B-listers. That's kind of a legacy issue.  Wasp would've been especially tough because she's so tied into Ant Man.  And Miss Marvel's movie rights only just came back into Marvel's possession - they've been buying them back because of how well the movie did.
> 
> But of the Marvel B-listers, I think Miss Marvel is the closest to moving up, in part because of Whedon's introduction of the SWORD space station and the way her character was featured in the Disney Avengers TV show.  I honestly think a good movie could fix up her story enough to push her up - and since she's tied so heavily into space and aliens, it's almost like there's a rogues gallery waiting for a hero.  Well, maybe.



They're doing an ant-man movie though, aren't they? Does anyone like him? In the Ultimates, he ended up abusing the Wasp into the arms of Captain America. I didn't like anything about any of that storyline.


----------



## Ophiucha

People actually _saw_ Texas Chainsaw?

@Mindfire, the problem is less within the text (erm, film) and more how it is presented. Wonder Woman is the definition of a strawman feminist, and when the dialogue pretty much outright _states _that they are opening the world of the Amazons so that they can meet men and date and live more full lives, it just has the strange mixed message that women need men to live full lives. Indeed, I seem to recall them saying that this change would let them "live their lives as women". The problems with their man-hating attitude are valid, yes, but they are created purposely to _justify _the ending where they decide that women just need a good man to live a full life. And Wonder Woman's reaction to her love interest's actions until he admits that he ~loves her~ is just so... poorly constructed. Rather than explore the legitimate sexism she experiences while living as Diana, they focus on her overreacting to him asking her out instead.

The film definitely also explores feminist ideas, as Wonder Woman comics/films often do, but it just keeps falling short over and over again. I wanted to like it, but the emphasis on how the women on their island wanted families and (implicitly) husbands, how Diana 'lightened up' after she found one nice guy despite numerous experiences with sexism on Earth. I feel like the writers - or the execs, perhaps - just sort of... purposely constructed a situation in which Diana and Hippolyta and everyone else would have to be proven wrong, as opposed to giving them more equal standing to present their viewpoints. Perhaps it was trying to strike a balance between pro- and anti-feminist arguments, but the poor characterization of Diana made it lean more towards anti-? Perhaps it was the cringe-worthy dying words of Persephone, "the Amazons are warriors, but we are women too!", which again emphasizes the idea that they all must want a family/husband. Perhaps it just needs a sequel that focuses on a strawman chauvinist villain to give the pro-feminist arguments a little more time to shine. But it fell very short of the line for me.

Plus, I don't like the woman who voiced Wonder Woman. The rest of the cast was fantastic, but she was... eh.


----------



## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> People actually _saw_ Texas Chainsaw?
> 
> @Mindfire, the problem is less within the text (erm, film) and more how it is presented. Wonder Woman is the definition of a strawman feminist, and when the dialogue pretty much outright _states _that they are opening the world of the Amazons so that they can meet men and date and live more full lives, it just has the strange mixed message that women need men to live full lives. Indeed, I seem to recall them saying that this change would let them "live their lives as women". The problems with their man-hating attitude are valid, yes, but they are created purposely to _justify _the ending where they decide that women just need a good man to live a full life. And Wonder Woman's reaction to her love interest's actions until he admits that he ~loves her~ is just so... poorly constructed. Rather than explore the legitimate sexism she experiences while living as Diana, they focus on her overreacting to him asking her out instead.
> 
> The film definitely also explores feminist ideas, as Wonder Woman comics/films often do, but it just keeps falling short over and over again. I wanted to like it, but the emphasis on how the women on their island wanted families and (implicitly) husbands, how Diana 'lightened up' after she found one nice guy despite numerous experiences with sexism on Earth. I feel like the writers - or the execs, perhaps - just sort of... purposely constructed a situation in which Diana and Hippolyta and everyone else would have to be proven wrong, as opposed to giving them more equal standing to present their viewpoints. Perhaps it was trying to strike a balance between pro- and anti-feminist arguments, but the poor characterization of Diana made it lean more towards anti-? Perhaps it was the cringe-worthy dying words of Persephone, "the Amazons are warriors, but we are women too!", which again emphasizes the idea that they all must want a family/husband. Perhaps it just needs a sequel that focuses on a strawman chauvinist villain to give the pro-feminist arguments a little more time to shine. But it fell very short of the line for me.
> 
> Plus, I don't like the woman who voiced Wonder Woman. The rest of the cast was fantastic, but she was... eh.



Personally, I thought Persephone's dying words were very touching. Also, maybe you missed my post earlier, but the "writers" you're blaming? Gail Simone. And I kind of see your points, but if you're looking for a "strawman chauvinist", it doesn't get any straw-ier than those dudes who attacked Diana and Trevor in that alleyway.


----------



## Ophiucha

Gail Simone has spoken about how much power the execs have over her decisions before; I wouldn't be surprised if they were around for this film, keeping her from going too feminist. I think Persephone's words would have been better if they it were just "we're also _human_" instead of specifically women, given the themes of the film up to that point. More inclusionary, less uncomfortable. Also, three nameless dudes in an alley hardly count as villains. 

Regarding the Marvel films, you definitely have history to contend with. These comics came out in the 60s, so obviously the most popular ones were the ones with male protagonists. Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, Captain America - you have to have them. But I think we could have swapped out Hawkeye for Black Cat or Wasp or even... Elektra. (I mean, she _did _get her own film a few years back. Sorry for reminding everyone! But I seem to recall her being affiliated with S.H.I.E.L.D. in at least one comic, so hey, it could have worked.) Hawkeye, nobody needed him. And nobody wants or needs an Ant-Man film. Or a Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Heck, I've seen talks of Cable, Nighthawk, Iron Fist, and _Vision_. VISION. Y'all can toss us Wasp, at the very least.

I also agree with whoever suggested _The Runaways_. That's, like, my favourite comic book series. Ideally make it before Mae Whitman is way too old to play Gertie Yorkes.


----------



## Mindfire

Wasp will probably appear in Ant-Man, seeing as (IIRC) her origin is closely tied to his.


----------



## Ophiucha

Yeah, the Wasp is his girlfriend/crime-fighting partner, though she _might _not come in until the second film (if they actually decide to bless the world with two Ant-Man films). Depends on which universe/timeline they decide to follow. Hopefully they add her into the first one, not just for the sake of an extra female hero, but also because Ant-Man is really boring and at least a bit of a romantic buddy cop angle would spice it up a bit.


----------



## saellys

Ophiucha said:


> Hawkeye, nobody needed him.



Hawkeye was literally a plot point. The only remotely interesting thing about his role in _Avengers_ was that it reversed a trope: his capture/imminent danger was used to get an emotional response from Black Widow, and not the other way around. Still, that was Exhibit A that Marvel wanted too much from Joss. I can just picture that meeting. "Uh, Hawkeye too?" "YES."



Ophiucha said:


> I also agree with whoever suggested _The Runaways_. That's, like, my favourite comic book series. Ideally make it before Mae Whitman is way too old to play Gertie Yorkes.



OMG she's perfect!


----------



## Feo Takahari

I've been doing some research on Wonder Woman's background, and I think maybe the problem with using her to comment on sexism is that she's been somewhat divorced from the level of sexism that, in-universe, shaped her earliest incarnation. In recent works, the Amazons hate men because, I dunno, men are icky or something. In the earliest comics, they're reacting to a history of enslavement. (That's where those manacle-like bracelets come from--they're a reminder that the Amazons were once chained, and a vow that they'll never be chained again.) If we as readers and viewers get a better idea of what Wonder Woman is reacting against, her reactions become more understandable and, contextually, potentially more sympathetic. (Not that she specifically _needs_ to react against sexism, only that in what I've seen of her, she reacts against people underestimating her, without much mention of anyone trying to control her.)


----------



## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> I've been doing some research on Wonder Woman's background, and I think maybe the problem with using her to comment on sexism is that she's been somewhat divorced from the level of sexism that, in-universe, shaped her earliest incarnation. In recent works, the Amazons hate men because, I dunno, men are icky or something. In the earliest comics, they're reacting to a history of enslavement. (That's where those manacle-like bracelets come from--they're a reminder that the Amazons were once chained, and a vow that they'll never be chained again.) If we as readers and viewers get a better idea of what Wonder Woman is reacting against, her reactions become more understandable and, contextually, potentially more sympathetic. (Not that she specifically _needs_ to react against sexism, only that in what I've seen of her, she reacts against people underestimating her, without much mention of anyone trying to control her.)



That makes some sense, but I think even that interpretation is flawed. Honestly, I think the "men are despicable" take on Wonder Woman has to go, root and stem. It adds nothing to the character and it certainly isn't a helpful commentary on real-world gender issues. I mean, Wonder Woman does NOT talk like this:















To be fair, that's from a comic that's pretty universally reviled and managed to get just about ALL the characters wrong, not just Wonder Woman. But it makes the point. When Wonder Woman's anti-men thing is played up it makes the character more... mean-spirited in a way that I personally don't think she should be. A reasonable compromise might be having Hippolyta and the other Amazons hold this view while Wonder Woman takes a more moderate stance, seeing both the good and bad in mankind and wanting to help them improve.


----------



## Ophiucha

Ugh, Frank Miller is the worst.

Wonder Woman is just a wildly underdeveloped character compared to most of the others in the DC line-up, and what few traits she tends to get over and over again were not established by the best writers. Her feminism quickly became 'strawman feminist' in the hands of the eighty dudes who wrote for her comics up until Gail Simone took over, and even though she did try to avoid it, the backstory with her living on Amazon island and Hippolyta's enforced isolation from men has sort of written the character into a corner. It's hard to take away her strawman traits because they've been woven into everything from her homeland to her outfit. And despite having an opportunity to change all of that with the New 52, they... honestly just made it a bit _worse_. A statement which applies to much of the New 52, to be fair.

I think a movie adaptation in the hands of some capable writers could establish a new 'canon' of Wonder Woman traits. The films are much more widely watched than the comics are read, and they almost invariably have an effect on the way the comics are written (primarily to market to all the people who liked the film). I think her being a feminist is necessary, but having it be her only really consistent trait, and one handled so poorly as it has been, has just been disastrous. Particularly since (a) most of her writers have no idea what modern feminism is even about, and (b) modern feminism does not a fun DC hero make. Unless they make her main villain 'Brush Tool Man', who with a wave of his wand gives women unrealistic expectations of beauty, there isn't necessarily a lot she could do to "fix sexism" that involves punching people in the face. A superheroine defined by her feminism might make for a good graphic novel over on Vertigo, but it doesn't really cut it for somebody on the same team as Batman.

And let's not get into their attempts to tackle non-Western feminism. Absolutely nobody at DC Comics or Hollywood is equipped to handle that, and every time they have tried has been cringe-worthy.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Ophiucha said:


> And let's not get into their attempts to tackle non-Western feminism. Absolutely nobody at DC Comics or Hollywood is equipped to handle that, and every time they have tried has been cringe-worthy.



I'm not entirely sure what the term "non-Western feminism" means in this context, but I'm kind of curious. Are you referring to characters like Dust, who have alternate perspectives on what constitutes female liberty? (I've heard about Dust secondhand, but I've never actually read any comic featuring her.)


----------



## Ophiucha

Dust is a pretty good character. Not from DC, but she's probably the most respectful depiction of a Muslim character in mainstream comics. Non-Western feminism, in my original context, could mean any issue that specifically deals with feminism outside of white America/Europe, which is generally where Wonder Woman sticks to. There have been a few instances where she travelled the world to deal with issues abroad, to mixed results. (I can't say I can recall an instance where she dealt with the intersection of racism and sexism in America, though.) Usually, it just comes across as blandly oversimplified and a little white saviour-y, but in the hands of the wrong writer, I've seen a few vaguely racist stories that make these women seem like idiots.

These days it is usually the former (let's not look back more than a decade, though), but particularly with Islam - where it is still somewhat acceptable in the mainstream to call the entire religion 'sexist' - they sometimes tread on a thin line. And DC just isn't very good at handling social issues. Not that Marvel is significantly better overall, but they've been much better about evolving their characters past the racist/sexist/homophobic origins they once had and giving the characters over to writers better equipped to handle those evolutions. It's left many of their characters without as strong an identity as they once had, but Marvel was never as iconic as DC. The Hulk, Spider-Man - those two most people know pretty well, though I think Spider-Man's the only one on Superman and Batman levels of notoriety. But even Iron Man and Captain America were relatively unknown until they launched the MCU. Wolverine is iconic almost entirely because of Hugh Jackman to 90% of the people who know the character. Whereas even Wonder Woman is still an icon despite having no major film and her last noteworthy TV show being in the mid-70s.

All of which I think is worth noting when discussing how each publisher handles it's characters. Marvel has a lot less to lose by making radical changes to their characters, and the X-Men (which is where Dust is) is basically a free-for-all of characters that best fit the author's whims and they can just add more and more every year. DC is much more bound to their characters' stories, despite their claim to change things with the reboot, and they don't have any mix-and-match series of the same acclaim and flexibility as X-Men (who, incidentally, recently got an all-female line up).


----------



## Mindfire

I think Ophiucha has a point about establishing a new Wonder Woman canon. It might be a good idea to salvage the few best things about the character, junk the rest, and start over from scratch. Thinks I think ought to be kept:
-Amazon princess
-Themyscira
-Her few noteworthy villains: Cheetah, Circe, Ares, and Hades, though they may need to be retooled slightly.
-The motif of her costume and it's most iconic components, like the magic rope, tiara, and vanguards (they're not bracelets and I defy any who say otherwise).

And that's about it. Starting with these base elements, where do you go from here? To start with, I think Diana needs a clearer origin story and a better relationship with her villains. Batman and Superman's best villains are the ones that are their ideological opposites or who are dark mirrors of themselves. Batman is a champion of order and justice, while the Joker believes not only that life is intrinsically random, meaningless, and unjust, but that this is _funny_. Superman believes that those who have power also have a responsibility to use it responsibly and to help others better themselves. He also believes in the goodness of humanity. His opposite, Lex Luthor, is a refutation of that ideal, an man with immense power and resources who uses them to further his own selfish ends and knows how to play the system and escape punishment. Wonder Woman doesn't really seem to have a villain who is her ideological opposite. How about this: instead of making Wonder Woman a strawman feminist, why not make her archenemy the strawman feminist? The Justice League series did this in one episode with a villain named Aresia, and it turned out pretty well. Conversely, you could make one of her chief villains a strawman chauvinist. I think Circe and Ares are best suited to these roles, respectively.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

I thought with the reboot they gave her these really neat black pants.  What the heck happened to those?


----------



## Mindfire

A. E. Lowan said:


> I thought with the reboot they gave her these really neat black pants.  What the heck happened to those?



Got rid of them because they were too different from her iconic look or something. I don't like any version of her New 52 costume honestly. The color scheme is wrong. Now THIS is what Wonder Woman should look like:







Aside from a few nitpicks that costume is perfect, and it looks like something that would fit in the universe established by Man of Steel.


----------



## saellys

^


----------



## Mindfire

saellys said:


> ^



This is a positive reaction?


----------



## saellys

Mindfire said:


> This is a positive reaction?



To one of your posts! Mark your calendars, people.


----------



## Zero Angel

It only took 71 pages!


----------



## A. E. Lowan

But look at her face?  That girl-child cannot possibly be be an Amazon queen!


----------



## Kit

She looks just like Kourtney Kardashian.

The costume, though, I'm reasonably happy with. It's really nice that her boobs aren't exposed. The only thing I can really pick at is my perpetual complaint that long loose hair is impractical for any type of physical fighting.


----------



## Mindfire

A. E. Lowan said:


> But look at her face?  That girl-child cannot possibly be be an Amazon queen!



You're entirely missing the point. Namely, the costume.



Kit said:


> She looks just like Kourtney Kardashian.
> 
> The costume, though, I'm reasonably happy with. It's really nice that her boobs aren't exposed. The only thing I can really pick at is my perpetual complaint that long loose hair is impractical for any type of physical fighting.



Well, long hair is kind of a Wonder Woman trademark, so I don't think it's one of those things you can change. And didn't Vikings fight with long hair? Besides, this is Wonder Woman we're talking about. Go on and grab her hair. I dare you.  I mean, Batman can fight off like 30 guys at once while wearing a long, heavy cape. By comparison is it really so implausible that Wonder Woman can fight with long hair?

EDIT: This looks like a reasonable compromise on the hair issue:








No idea what comic this is from. It's a nice look. Not a fan of the huge arm gauntlet thing though. A combination of the costume I posted before with a few elements from this one would probably please just about everyone.


----------



## Ophiucha

Having a sleeve or gauntlet on only one armour seems to be a thing recently. I blame anime.


----------



## Mindfire

Ophiucha said:


> Having a sleeve or gauntlet on only one arm seems to be a thing recently. I blame anime.



That thing makes it look like it'd be impossible to bend your elbow.


----------



## Devor

I liked Wonder Woman well enough when I watched the animated series recently, but I don't really think a Wonder Woman film is going to solve the female superhero shortage.  Mostly, too much of her character is about sexism/feminism.  It's trying just a little too hard to make the point, and I think you could make more of an impression by not playing up those issues.

If they made Wonder Woman, and it did really well, film execs would probably dismiss that success as something they can't replicate in other characters.  And they wouldn't be wrong, in that there's only so many feminist superhero movies the market can take.  On the other hand, a movie about a superhero who happens to be a woman, if done well, could very easily kick start a trend.

. . . . come to think of it, I'd be surprised if Pepper Potts from Iron Man 3 doesn't jump start a trend in female superhero movies.  Somebody at Marvel has to be taking another look at their future script choices just based on those scenes.


----------



## saellys

I keep hearing that Pepper came into her own in IM3, to which I reply, "About stinking time!" I'll have to get around to watching that one of these days.


----------



## Devor

saellys said:


> I keep hearing that Pepper came into her own in IM3, to which I reply, "About stinking time!" I'll have to get around to watching that one of these days.



I think her screen time in IM3 may actually be less than in the other two, but it treats her pretty well.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Pepper does get a little less screen time, and she does need a little rescuing, but when she is unleashed (and I intentionally use that word) watch out!  IM3 is the best of them, IMO.


----------



## Mindfire

A. E. Lowan said:


> Pepper does get a little less screen time, and she does need a little rescuing, but when she is unleashed (and I intentionally use that word) watch out!  IM3 is the best of them, IMO.



Actually, the general consensus I've heard is that the first Iron Man is still the best. Especially considering how badly they butchered the Mandarin...

As for Pepper, there's this joke going around that all the Iron Man films are going to be about her from now on, which is... idk. Whenever you have a secondary character upstage a main character, you have to be careful about not jumping the shark.


----------



## Zero Angel

saellys said:


> I keep hearing that Pepper came into her own in IM3, to which I reply, "About stinking time!" I'll have to get around to watching that one of these days.



I can't wait to see Iron Man 3 (unfortunately, the ACA decimated all luxury expenditures for me), but the only thing I've heard about Pepper is that she gets her own suit. 

In the comic lore doesn't she end up with Jon Favreau's character?


----------



## Devor

Mindfire said:


> Actually, the general consensus I've heard is that the first Iron Man is still the best. Especially considering how badly they butchered the Mandarin...



They didn't use the Mandarin.  They used Mallen, under a different name, and they were really pretty close with him.

Honestly, magic rings would've been a tough sell in the MCU.


----------



## Ophiucha

Yeah, Pepper isn't usually Tony's love interest in the comics, but Hollywood has to change _something_. I much prefer the Mandarin as he is in _Iron Man 3_... like, his character is just ridiculously over powered and is a Chinese character conceived of in the 60s, with all that entails. Probably for the best that they ditched a lot of his canon lore for the film.

I'd love to see more of Pepper in the later films, but I don't think she'll ever be more prominent than she was in this one, and at most, she'd probably just get her own suit for the climactic battle of the next film. Similar to Rhodey, really. And I don't know if I necessarily want her _replacing_ Rhodey, which would be my concern if she did get her own suit. This film worked really well at keeping a power balance between the three, but while it may not necessarily be the topic of this thread, I'd be a bit uncomfortable with a black man getting pushed to the side of the plot for the sake of a new, white sidekick - even if she's a female one. I could see, though, Pepper playing a bigger role in later Marvel films in general, though. Particularly if RDJ starts easing his way out of the series, which I think is bound to happen sooner rather than later.


----------



## Mindfire

Devor said:


> They didn't use the Mandarin.  They used Mallen, under a different name, and they were really pretty close with him.
> 
> Honestly, magic rings would've been a tough sell in the MCU.



They might have been able to make the rings work. But the gimmicky rings aren't what I wanted from the character. I wanted a criminal genius, a terrorist mastermind, a Moriarty type character with some dramatic flair and a thing for collecting Asian iconography. Someone who didn't have to physically fight Tony Stark in order to wreck his life and tear him apart. In short, I wanted everything they made the Mandarin out to be to actually be true. I was bitterly disappointed.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Yeah, but they really had to avoid the Yellow Terror crap that spawned the original Mandarin.  I loved what they did with him.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

And anyone notice that this is now the Ironman thread? lol


----------



## Mindfire

A. E. Lowan said:


> Yeah, but they really had to avoid the Yellow Terror crap that spawned the original Mandarin.  I loved what they did with him.



IMO, that small benefit to their "reinterpretation" was not at all worth creating an ultimately crap villain. They could have avoided racist implications and still made him a worthwhile villain. Heck, even if they made the character Asian, it wouldn't have necessarily a bad thing. Minority villain automatically = racist? I don't think so. And in the end, the Shayamalan-esque twist they ended up using, it sucks.


----------



## Mindfire

Anyway, to get back on topic: just found out about this game called Dragon's Prophet, a little free-to-play MMO game that allows you to create a character and train your own dragon. Looks fun. And then I saw, well, it speaks for itself.















What. Why does a game need 5 different sliders for boobs? I mean, why?


----------



## Devor

I made an Iron Man post but deleted it when I realized I was ninjaed by that.  That's crazy.


----------



## saellys

No slider for bounciness? I feel cheated.


----------



## Ghost

There are *so many* things wrong with both costumes.

I'm assuming a male character also has customizable cleavage since he's got a bra on, or maybe some sliders to control whatever's going on with his crotch. Would setting all those sliders on max incur some sort of dexterity penalty?


----------



## Ophiucha

I am just curious what the slider for 'breast shape' changes. I get the other four, but how do you make a _slider _for shape? A slider with at least 43 degrees, no less. Genuinely baffling, and I say this as somebody who spends 20 minutes making sure my Skyrim characters have _just _the right nose.

With video games, I think my biggest pet peeve is weight. Male video game characters usually range from a relative litheness - sort of an archer or thief body type - to the ridiculous uberbuff Liefeld men. Female video game characters get to range from busty and lithe to busty and thin but with a slightly different texture on their arm and (obviously exposed) midriff to show that they have a bit of muscle definition. Come on, now, I accept that most men would still pick the busty and skinny choice, but where are my barbarian ladies? Aside from games like Saint's Row where you can change everything about a character's appearance down to making them morbidly obese, it's really rare. Though Diablo III did have a pretty decent one for their Barbarian class.







I mean, she still has remarkably little armour in the chest area for someone who just charges into battle, but at least she's got arms big enough to hold up a battle axe. It's the little things, sometimes.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Ophiucha said:


> I am just curious what the slider for 'breast shape' changes. I get the other four, but how do you make a _slider _for shape? A slider with at least 43 degrees, no less. Genuinely baffling, and I say this as somebody who spends 20 minutes making sure my Skyrim characters have _just _the right nose.
> 
> With video games, I think my biggest pet peeve is weight. Male video game characters usually range from a relative litheness - sort of an archer or thief body type - to the ridiculous uberbuff Liefeld men. Female video game characters get to range from busty and lithe to busty and thin but with a slightly different texture on their arm and (obviously exposed) midriff to show that they have a bit of muscle definition. Come on, now, I accept that most men would still pick the busty and skinny choice, but where are my barbarian ladies? Aside from games like Saint's Row where you can change everything about a character's appearance down to making them morbidly obese, it's really rare. Though Diablo III did have a pretty decent one for their Barbarian class.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I mean, she still has remarkably little armour in the chest area for someone who just charges into battle, but at least she's got arms big enough to hold up a battle axe. It's the little things, sometimes.



Remember, enemies only aim for the shiny bits!


----------



## Scribble

Speaking of shiny bits, this excellent article on Tor.com explains the perils of wearing boob-plate armor.

boob-plate-armor-would-kill-you


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Love this!  Totally bookmarking it for a female Champion we have currently in the works.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Ophiucha said:


> With video games, I think my biggest pet peeve is weight. Male video game characters usually range from a relative litheness - sort of an archer or thief body type - to the ridiculous uberbuff Liefeld men. Female video game characters get to range from busty and lithe to busty and thin but with a slightly different texture on their arm and (obviously exposed) midriff to show that they have a bit of muscle definition. Come on, now, I accept that most men would still pick the busty and skinny choice, but where are my barbarian ladies? Aside from games like Saint's Row where you can change everything about a character's appearance down to making them morbidly obese, it's really rare. Though Diablo III did have a pretty decent one for their Barbarian class.



That's actually one of the things I like about SWTOR.  There are several body types, and while you don't get the hyper detail-oriented sliders you get with games like Dragon Age, I can tell you my Bounty Hunter is a pleasant size 16 with a sweet round face, probably, while my Sith Maurauder could bench press a Rancor.  Granted, my Smuggler is a pixie, but she's so cute!  And one of the male body types actually IS morbidly obese.  And aside from the obligatory slave Leia costume to get on Tatoonine (though I think guys should be able to wear them, too), because after all, this IS Star Wars, all the armor sets are pretty tame.

Go Bioware and Lucas Arts!


----------



## Zero Angel

Scribble said:


> Speaking of shiny bits, this excellent article on Tor.com explains the perils of wearing boob-plate armor.
> 
> boob-plate-armor-would-kill-you



I'm always surprised by the girls in chain mail bikinis at SCA events. I'd figure the chafing would be a very serious drawback to that variety of leisure wear O_O

In fighting, here is a quote from the Marshal's Handbook in the SCA (note: the people wearing chainmail bikinis are not fighting, they are spectators. Fighters have very strict armor requirements):


> 3. For women, groin protection of closed-cell foam or heavy leather or the equivalent is required to cover the
> pubic bone area. The wearing of a male athletic cup by female fighters is prohibited.
> 4. Separate breast cups are prohibited unless connected by or mounted on an interconnecting rigid piece, for
> example, a heavy leather or metal breastplate.


Source: www.sca.org/officers/marshal/docs/marshal_handbook.pdf (pg 12)

That's about the only difference in requirements of armor.


----------



## Addison

In my opinion any MMORPG with any number of sliders, especially FIVE, relating to breasts, is sick and clearly made by either men with no life and lots of dreams and/or women with low self esteem. 

But back to the thread topic (as there was one about fifty pages ago about Women in Fantasy) a female character, especially the hero, follows the same arcs as a male hero. Farmer turned valiant hero, rags to riches and all of those. As a woman myself, yet an avid reader, I'm pulled toward both but it's the story itself that draws me. Yet even my kid siblings have differences. My sister loves reading books about girls her age throwing sleep overs and bake sales, my brother is loving the Janitors series and something about a kid and a school virus. (Not a Janitors book) But he will not pick up a book with a strong female hero like Fablehaven or Winterling or Enchanted Forest Chronicles. My sister is eating the Chronicles and a Frog Princess series and is devouring Alosha. 

When I asked my brother why he wasn't reading those books he said the hero was a girl and, and I quote, "Girls can't be as good as heroes as boys can." As a girl, reader, writer, and big sister I laid down the law. I asked him to make a list of what makes boys better heroes than girls and girls worse heroes than boys.  If my scanner was working I'd upload is list it is so little-boy-cute-and-ridiculous. 

Needless to say I turned each of his items on his "Girls worse" list around. So at the end when I asked why girls aren't as good heroes all he could come up with was "They're girls." So I made a bet for him to read the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, at least the first one. And if he either honestly didn't like it or didn't read the second, then I would make him a whole pan of special brownies. If he did like it and/or read the next, I got the whole weekend free of little kid interruptions and I didn't have to make his bed or feed his dog. 

Needless to say I'm going to have a very pleasant weekend.


----------



## Kit

You handled that very well. I would have just knocked him down and given him noogies till he took it back.

Please let us know what he thought of the book!


----------



## Mindfire

Hmmm... I wouldn't have given him the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. I would have given him Percy Jackson instead.


----------



## Devor

Mindfire said:


> Hmmm... I wouldn't have given him the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. I would have given him Percy Jackson instead.



Ohhhhh Enchanted Forest over Percy Jackson, every time.  We are now bitter enemies forever.


----------



## Mindfire

Devor said:


> Ohhhhh Enchanted Forest over Percy Jackson, every time.  We are now bitter enemies forever.



I have nothing against EFC. It inspired some elements of my own WIP. I just like the Percy Jackson books more. 

In any case, I speculate that Ophiucha's brother doesn't really have anything against girls. He just prefers male heroes because they're more like him and he can relate to them and imagine being them better. This is normal for children and nothing to worry about.


----------



## Jessquoi

Mindfire said:


> I have nothing against EFC. It inspired some elements of my own WIP. I just like the Percy Jackson books more.
> 
> In any case, I speculate that Ophiucha's brother doesn't really have anything against girls. He just prefers male heroes because they're more like him and he can relate to them and imagine being them better. This is normal for children and nothing to worry about.



That doesn't seem to fair to me. What about little girls reading books then? Do you think they'd relate better to a heroine, of which there are usually less? I'm female and I related to Harry Potter and other male MCs just fine. It's normal for young boys to relate to heros but then it also has to be normal for young girls to relate to heros too?


----------



## Mindfire

Jessquoi said:


> That doesn't seem to fair to me. What about little girls reading books then? Do you think they'd relate better to a heroine, of which there are usually less? I'm female and I related to Harry Potter and other male MCs just fine. It's normal for young boys to relate to heros but then it also has to be normal for young girls to relate to heros too?



I actually, I do think girls are more likely to relate to heroines. Disney has built an entire franchise on that idea.


----------



## Kit

Studies have shown that little girls will watch TV shows and read books about male characters, but that the reverse tends to not be true.


----------



## saellys

Mindfire said:


> I actually, I do think girls are more likely to relate to heroines. Disney has built an entire franchise on that idea.



If you think the franchise Disney has built is based on heroines, I want to know what movies you've been watching.


----------



## Mindfire

Kit said:


> Studies have shown that little girls will watch TV shows and read books about male characters, but that the reverse tends to not be true.



I think this merely shows that girls are willing to watch shows starring male heroes. It does not show that, given the choice, they prefer male heroes to female ones. I would suspect they don't.



saellys said:


> If you think the franchise Disney has built is based on heroines, I want to know what movies you've been watching.



Disney Princesses are the protagonists and heroines of their stories, or at least that's the way Disney markets them. Not to mention 70-80% of what airs on Disney Channel is clearly marketed to girls.


----------



## Ireth

Mindfire said:


> Disney Princesses are the protagonists and heroines of their stories, or at least that's the way Disney markets them. Not to mention 70-80% of what airs on Disney Channel is clearly marketed to girls.



"Protagonists" I'll grant you, but I wouldn't call some of them heroines. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and other princesses with little to no agency in their own stories are hardly what many would call heroic. On the other hand, you have Mulan, Pocahontas, Merida, and others who DO take control of their own lives, so I guess there's a balance.


----------



## Mindfire

Ireth said:


> "Protagonists" I'll grant you, but I wouldn't call some of them heroines. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and other princesses with little to no agency in their own stories are hardly what many would call heroic. On the other hand, you have Mulan, Pocahontas, Merida, and others who DO take control of their own lives, so I guess there's a balance.



There has been a shift in the presentation of Disney princesses over time. (You left out Princess Tiana!) But even though earlier Disney princesses have less agency, they're still marketed as role models and lifted up as icons of "specialness", similar to the way characters from other franchises like Batman and GI Joe are aimed at boys. Disney targets girls intentionally. In fact, I'd say they're the biggest entity that does so.


----------



## Ireth

Mindfire said:


> (You left out Princess Tiana!)



I did say "others", which includes her and any I didn't think of at that moment, like Ariel. ^^


----------



## Steerpike

There's no inherent reason boys and girls will necessarily respond better to a protagonist of their own sex. Human beings, even children, can identify with the struggles of other similarly-situated humans (in this case, other kids). I feel most of the preconceptions that go into boys not liking reading about girls are taught. From what I understand from children's book agents, girls are far more likely to be willing to read about boys than vice versa, which also fits in perfectly that the response is a product of socialization in a patriarchal society.


----------



## Devor

Mindfire said:


> Disney targets girls intentionally. In fact, I'd say they're the biggest entity that does so.



Okay, here's a quick lesson in identifying a target audience.

Women are not all the same.  Like everyone else, they tend to fall into groups which you can identify.  Some women fall in the middle of one of those groups, and are on the outskirts, or in between.  We'll call the groups A, B, C, and D for Disney.

Most of the time, a product needs to appeal to multiple groups at the same time in order to find a strong market.  If you appeal to group A, and only group A, you have to do a tougher job of saturating the niche.  Instead of shooting for 10% of all women, you need to hit 40% of group A to get the same volume.  As a result, products which only market to group A, B, C, or D get lower investments.  It's just too tough to expect them to succeed as much.

Enter Disney.  Disney targets group D of women heavily, and effectively.  So much so, in fact, that it breaks the boundaries of group D and becomes, for lack of a better word, "pop."  Most of the time, groups "A, B, C, and D" aren't defined by a label but by an axis of traits, and a percentage to which each person lines up with each group.  If group "D" is the bottom right quadrant, then you have to be at the top left to be diametrically opposed to the group.  Most women are, let's say, at least 10% group D, even if they're 90% group A.  By gaining 90% saturation in group D, Disney is able to reach a significant percentage of all four hypothetical groups of women, based on most women's 10+% affiliation with group D.

But it would be incomplete to simply say that "Disney targets women" and leave it at that.  There are three groups of women, in this example, who enjoy Disney movies without feeling "targeted."


----------



## Kit

Steerpike said:


> I feel most of the preconceptions that go into boys not liking reading about girls are taught. From what I understand from children's book agents, girls are far more likely to be willing to read about boys than vice versa, which also fits in perfectly that the response is a product of socialization in a patriarchal society.



That's what I took from the "girls will watch TV shows with male characters but boys won't watch shows with female characters" study. I think it's really sad and scary that young boys are getting indoctrinated into the whole "boys are better than girls" mindset before they can even articulate any reasoning for it (aside from the aforementioned "they're girls").


----------



## saellys

Mindfire said:


> Disney Princesses are the protagonists and heroines of their stories, or at least that's the way Disney markets them. Not to mention 70-80% of what airs on Disney Channel is clearly marketed to girls.





Mindfire said:


> There has been a shift in the presentation of Disney princesses over time. (You left out Princess Tiana!) But even though earlier Disney princesses have less agency, they're still marketed as role models and lifted up as icons of "specialness", similar to the way characters from other franchises like Batman and GI Joe are aimed at boys. Disney targets girls intentionally. In fact, I'd say they're the biggest entity that does so.



"Markets" and "targets" are definitely the right words for this situation. Disney has very carefully chosen a model of femininity that requires absolutely no effort to sell, and can be reproduced time and again with minimal variation. 

All the Disney princesses apart from the three Ireth mentioned wind up happily married with every material possession they could possibly want by the end of their titular stories, after being completely passive for the ninety minutes leading up to the denouement. They are only heroines by the most indulgent of standards, and certainly not in the way Batman and the characters of _GI Joe_ are heroes. 

And while Disney Channel shows are undeniably marketed to a predominantly female audience, the models of femaleness they present are almost exclusively harmful. I have viewed more _Hannah Montana_ and _The Suite Life of Zack & Cody_ than any human being should ever have to, and witnessed portrayals that ranged from baseless and unresolved girlhate and internalized misogyny, tacitly supported by the narrative, to a fifteen-year-old girl proudly declaring how "hot" she was. Former Disney start Demi Lovato made some amazing posts on Twitter in response to a joke about eating disorders in another Disney Channel show. When someone who made untold riches in your teen star factory turns around and tells you how screwed up your standards are, you're probably doing something wrong.

Disney is among the most active and focused media entities targeting a female audience, and the overwhelming majority of what they present is detrimental to that audience's self-esteem, ambition, and ability to relate to other girls in constructive ways. _Read Cinderella Ate My Daughter_ or watch _Miss Representation_ for more on that. 

Oh, and if you downplay this because you think everyone can automatically tell how meretricious and vapid these portrayals are, allow me to point out that most of the members of this forum are presumably voracious readers, and probably weren't raised by television. Most generations younger than us, or less interested in books than us, _were_ raised by television (correlation here, not causation). These shows are marketed to young children, and young children internalize _everything_ they encounter, and copy a large percentage of it. (Once, Zack/Cody put a paper bag over his twin's head, and my six-year-old nannying charge copied the action on herself with a plastic bag. I grew twenty grey hairs that day.) What they see gets incorporated in how they behave, how they think, and how they view themselves.


----------



## Addison

We just cleaned up after dinner and he is laying on the sofa with the book in hand. I said there's cookies and he didn't move. He's loving the book! Maybe I should make bets like this more often. 

As for the Disney Princess remark, I have only seen....four princesses who were strong heroines. 
Merida-Brave (Tomboy, archer, stubborn, faced off with a friggin bear and her father)
Rapunzel-Tangled (She's mean with a frying pan and can out-swing Tarzan with her hair)
Jasmine-Aladdin (Has a pet tiger, runs away from home, gets in the guard's face, and (In King of Thieves) Decks some guys)
Esmerelda -Hunchback of Notre Dame (Defies the villain, insults him, takes out the guards without breaking a sweat, takes down Phoebos)

My favorite princess is Belle. One because she likes to read as much as I do, second because of the castle and all the talking objects.


----------



## Mindfire

Addison said:


> We just cleaned up after dinner and he is laying on the sofa with the book in hand. I said there's cookies and he didn't move. He's loving the book! Maybe I should make bets like this more often.
> 
> As for the Disney Princess remark, I have only seen....four princesses who were strong heroines.
> Merida-Brave (Tomboy, archer, stubborn, faced off with a friggin bear and her father)
> Rapunzel-Tangled (She's mean with a frying pan and can out-swing Tarzan with her hair)
> Jasmine-Aladdin (Has a pet tiger, runs away from home, gets in the guard's face, and (In King of Thieves) Decks some guys)
> Esmerelda -Hunchback of Notre Dame (Defies the villain, insults him, takes out the guards without breaking a sweat, takes down Phoebos)
> 
> My favorite princess is Belle. One because she likes to read as much as I do, second because of the castle and all the talking objects.



Why are Mulan, Tiana, and Pocahontas (who saves the day in her film more or less) not on this list?


----------



## Mindfire

Kit said:


> That's what I took from the "girls will watch TV shows with male characters but boys won't watch shows with female characters" study. I think it's really sad and scary that young boys are getting indoctrinated into the whole "boys are better than girls" mindset before they can even articulate any reasoning for it (aside from the aforementioned "they're girls").



To be fair, it goes both ways. Back in my day, both sexes were resolutely convinced that they were superior to the other. Has that changed?


----------



## Zero Angel

Addison said:


> In my opinion any MMORPG with any number of sliders, especially FIVE, relating to breasts, is sick and clearly made by either men with no life and lots of dreams and/or women with low self esteem.


I'm not opposed to sliders for that so long as there are sliders for EVERY other body part, and it would probably be better if you have to go through a menu or two in order to get the advanced customization options. 



Addison said:


> But back to the thread topic (as there was one about fifty pages ago about Women in Fantasy) a female character, especially the hero, follows the same arcs as a male hero. Farmer turned valiant hero, rags to riches and all of those. As a woman myself, yet an avid reader, I'm pulled toward both but it's the story itself that draws me. Yet even my kid siblings have differences. My sister loves reading books about girls her age throwing sleep overs and bake sales, my brother is loving the Janitors series and something about a kid and a school virus. (Not a Janitors book) But he will not pick up a book with a strong female hero like Fablehaven or Winterling or Enchanted Forest Chronicles. My sister is eating the Chronicles and a Frog Princess series and is devouring Alosha.
> 
> When I asked my brother why he wasn't reading those books he said the hero was a girl and, and I quote, "Girls can't be as good as heroes as boys can." As a girl, reader, writer, and big sister I laid down the law. I asked him to make a list of what makes boys better heroes than girls and girls worse heroes than boys.  If my scanner was working I'd upload is list it is so little-boy-cute-and-ridiculous.
> 
> Needless to say I turned each of his items on his "Girls worse" list around. So at the end when I asked why girls aren't as good heroes all he could come up with was "They're girls." So I made a bet for him to read the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, at least the first one. And if he either honestly didn't like it or didn't read the second, then I would make him a whole pan of special brownies. If he did like it and/or read the next, I got the whole weekend free of little kid interruptions and I didn't have to make his bed or feed his dog.
> 
> Needless to say I'm going to have a very pleasant weekend.



Book 2 and 4 of EFC strongly feature male heroes though. Pretty nice representation, although 4 was a let-down after the first three. 



Kit said:


> That's what I took from the "girls will watch TV shows with male characters but boys won't watch shows with female characters" study. I think it's really sad and scary that young boys are getting indoctrinated into the whole "boys are better than girls" mindset before they can even articulate any reasoning for it (aside from the aforementioned "they're girls").



There's another reason or two why boys probably don't want to read stories about, and it's also why I will be at least leery of stories with main female characters. 

1) "Women's Literature" is very offsetting and quite hard to stomach. In fact, if something is classified as "women's lit" before it's classified as something else (say, fantasy), then it will have to really come strongly onto my radar in order to warrant a read. 

2) Kind of an extension of (1) I suppose, but more upsetting (to me) is that stories concerning girls are frequently concerning stereotypical girls.



saellys said:


> "Markets" and "targets" are definitely the right words for this situation. Disney has very carefully chosen a model of femininity that requires absolutely no effort to sell, and can be reproduced time and again with minimal variation.
> 
> All the Disney princesses apart from the three Ireth mentioned wind up happily married with every material possession they could possibly want by the end of their titular stories, after being completely passive for the ninety minutes leading up to the denouement. They are only heroines by the most indulgent of standards, and certainly not in the way Batman and the characters of _GI Joe_ are heroes.


That brings up another interesting point though. Girl characters very frequently get their happily ever after ending, while characters like Batman may succeed in winning the day, but still aren't happy. Stoicism in guy characters isn't just something that is lauded, it's preferred frequently.



saellys said:


> Oh, and if you downplay this because you think everyone can automatically tell how meretricious and vapid these portrayals are, allow me to point out that most of the members of this forum are presumably voracious readers, and probably weren't raised by television.


I'm always very interested in what motivates your counter-arguments before someone argues them because this is not a point that I can see anyone arguing. Maybe if it was adult television, but it's for kids. Kids are bright and all, but that doesn't mean we need to throw all of that crap at them. 



saellys said:


> Most generations younger than us, or less interested in books than us, _were_ raised by television


I'm not sure how far back you have to go to get a generation that wasn't raised on television, but just for the record, I was raised by television.


----------



## Mindfire

Zero Angel said:


> I'm not sure how far back you have to go to get a generation that wasn't raised on television, but just for the record, I was raised by television.



I wasn't!  Were you a 70s or 80s kid by any chance? They say Gen-Xers tended to have less attentive parents.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Mindfire said:


> Why are Mulan, Tiana, and Pocahontas (who saves the day in her film more or less) not on this list?



It's hard to count Pocahontas because while she is spirited, they changed her so much for the story she kind of becomes a native American sex kitten.

And I just don't know Tiana.

For the record, Fa Mulan has always been my personal favorite of all time because she is an actual historical figure.  The woman kicked such serious butt that a legion of legends blossomed around her.  The actual stories about her are even more fantastic than the movie.


----------



## Kit

Mindfire said:


> To be fair, it goes both ways. Back in my day, both sexes were resolutely convinced that they were superior to the other. Has that changed?



Point taken. Probably not. I do think the boys are worse about it, though (I blame the messages they are getting, not the boys themselves).


----------



## Devor

saellys said:


> All the Disney princesses apart from the three Ireth mentioned wind up happily married with every material possession they could possibly want by the end of their titular stories, after being completely passive for the ninety minutes leading up to the denouement. They are only heroines by the most indulgent of standards, and certainly not in the way Batman and the characters of _GI Joe_ are heroes.



To be fair, most of them do have agency, and are decent characters, even if they aren't heroines.  I would say the problem is the way Disney markets them collectively to young girls, in ways that are often detached from their  actual stories.  It's like they stereotype themselves when they promote "The Disney Princesses" and show off a row of skinny rich women.  I mostly love the movies themselves, but their merchandising towards young girls is total crap.

I've also taken issue with Hannah Montana and some of the others girl-targeting shows on Disney, but they also air things like Phineas and Ferb or Marvel's Avengers, so I don't otherwise have a good impression of whether that's "Disney" or just those couple of shows.  I mean, Disney is pretty big nowadays - ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Pirates of the Carribean.... and the guy from Pixar has been responsible for green lighting all Disney movies since Disney bought them.  So I think the situation at Disney is improving, and the problem getting more narrow, to say the least.


----------



## Mindfire

A. E. Lowan said:


> It's hard to count Pocahontas because while she is spirited, they changed her so much for the story she kind of becomes a native American sex kitten.



Well of course they changed it. This is Disney we're talking about. And I really don't think she's "sexy", especially not when you compare her design to, say, Jasmine's or Esmerelda's. 

Wait, since when is Esmerelda a princess?


----------



## saellys

Zero Angel said:


> 1) "Women's Literature" is very offsetting and quite hard to stomach. In fact, if something is classified as "women's lit" before it's classified as something else (say, fantasy), then it will have to really come strongly onto my radar in order to warrant a read.



Just so you're aware, "women's literature" is frequently classified that way for no other reason than that it was written by a woman. You're missing out on a lot.



Zero Angel said:


> That brings up another interesting point though. Girl characters very frequently get their happily ever after ending, while characters like Batman may succeed in winning the day, but still aren't happy. Stoicism in guy characters isn't just something that is lauded, it's preferred frequently.



I agree wholeheartedly with that observation. Seems like in that respect, at least, media targeted at boys does a better job of preparing the audience for life's unending tedium and disappointment. 



Zero Angel said:


> I'm always very interested in what motivates your counter-arguments before someone argues them because this is not a point that I can see anyone arguing. Maybe if it was adult television, but it's for kids. Kids are bright and all, but that doesn't mean we need to throw all of that crap at them.
> 
> I'm not sure how far back you have to go to get a generation that wasn't raised on television, but just for the record, I was raised by television.



This particular counter-argument comes from real life. My husband doesn't think television's impact is that great, and is constantly confused when I express frustration over what gets perpetuated in media. He was a latchkey kid, but he grew up reading instead of watching TV, so making it a generational distinction was a faux pas on my part.


----------



## Mindfire

Kit said:


> Point taken. Probably not. I do think the boys are worse about it, though.



Sorry, you're going to have a hard time selling me that one.


----------



## saellys

Devor said:


> To be fair, most of them do have agency, and are decent characters, even if they aren't heroines.



I'm curious: can you name three differences between Snow White, Aurora, and Cinderella other than their physical appearance and what happens to them in their movies? 



Devor said:


> I would say the problem is the way Disney markets them collectively to young girls, in ways that are often detached from their  actual stories.  It's like they stereotype themselves when they promote "The Disney Princesses" and show off a row of skinny rich women.  I mostly love the movies themselves, but their merchandising towards young girls is total crap.



No argument here. The whole angle of making girls want to "be" a princess squicks me out. What does it even _mean_?



Devor said:


> I've also taken issue with Hannah Montana and some of the others girl-targeting shows on Disney, but they also air things like Phineas and Ferb or Marvel's Avengers, so I don't otherwise have a good impression of whether that's "Disney" or just those couple of shows.  I mean, Disney is pretty big nowadays - ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Pirates of the Carribean.... and the guy from Pixar has been responsible for green lighting all Disney movies since Disney bought them.  So I think the situation at Disney is improving, and the problem getting more narrow, to say the least.



Mindfire and I were talking about Disney shows that are clearly marketed primarily to girls; _Phineas and Ferb_ (which is great) is debatable, while _Avengers_ is pretty clearly not. As for things improving, well, Brenda Chapman has some stories to tell about that.


----------



## Mindfire

saellys said:


> I'm curious: can you name three differences between Snow White, Aurora, and Cinderella other than their physical appearance and what happens to them in their movies?



Snow White and Aurora are largely the same, except Snow has by far the most annoying voice in all of Disney animated film history. Cinderella on the other hand is a bit different. I'd consider her the first Disney princess to have a personality of some kind. She reminds me of a more mature Sansa Stark in some ways, particularly the longsuffering spirit she shows when dealing with her step-relatives. And if you pay attention, there's a hint of a sarcastic streak there too, carefully concealed by a mask of politeness.

Now here's a real challenge. Can you tell the Disney _Princes_ from these movies apart? Until a short while ago, I didn't even know they had names!  (Except Philip. And I only remember his name because he has an awesome fight scene with a dragon.)


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Mindfire said:


> Wait, since when is Esmerelda a princess?



You're right about Esmerelda (though she kicks butt), but since when is Tiana?  Unless we count Princess-by-marriage, she's a waitress, if I understand correctly (Of course, this accounting takes out most of the Disney Princesses lol).  And it was my understanding from historical costuming that if Pocahontas had dressed like that she would have been stoned for immorality.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

I also think we need to take the Classic Disney depictions off the table.  This stuff dates back DECADES when it was considered a good thing to tranquilize women who were unhappy being housewives.  The more modern movies are more fair to debate.


----------



## Ireth

A. E. Lowan said:


> You're right about Esmerelda (though she kicks butt), but since when is Tiana?  Unless we count Princess-by-marriage, she's a waitress, if I understand correctly (Of course, this accounting takes out most of the Disney Princesses lol).  And it was my understanding from historical costuming that if Pocahontas had dressed like that she would have been stoned for immorality.



Well, Mulan is sometimes included in the princess lineup as well, and she isn't a princess either by birth or marriage. What can ya do?


----------



## Mindfire

A. E. Lowan said:


> You're right about Esmerelda (though she kicks butt), but since when is Tiana?  Unless we count Princess-by-marriage, she's a waitress, if I understand correctly (Of course, this accounting takes out most of the Disney Princesses lol).



Princesses by marriage count. But what I meant is that Esmerelda doesn't even appear on the official Disney princesses list.



A. E. Lowan said:


> And it was my understanding from historical costuming that if Pocahontas had dressed like that she would have been stoned for immorality.



By European standards, maybe. But she's not European.


----------



## Mindfire

Ireth said:


> Well, Mulan is sometimes included in the princess lineup as well, and she isn't a princess either by birth or marriage. What can ya do?



No, but she was given special honor by the emperor of China. That's got to count for something.


----------



## Devor

saellys said:


> I'm curious: can you name three differences between Snow White, Aurora, and Cinderella other than their physical appearance and what happens to them in their movies?



Just that two were made in the fifties, while Snow White dates to 1937.  That was it for Disney princesses until pretty much the 90s.

Snow White, Aurora and Cinderella are all pretty typical and reasonably positive portrayals for their time.  Why anyone cares about them now, fifty-to-eighty years later, goes back to the merchandising.


----------



## Chessie

Mindfire said:


> Princesses by marriage count. But what I meant is that Esmerelda doesn't even appear on the official Disney princesses list.
> 
> 
> 
> By European standards, maybe. But she's not European.



Interesting. Some say Pocahontas was around 10 when Smith first met her. And as for Esmeralda, she had it rough in Hugo's novel. She was no princess at all.


----------



## Mindfire

Chesterama said:


> Interesting. Some say Pocahontas was around 10 when Smith first met her. And as for Esmeralda, she had it rough in Hugo's novel. She was no princess at all.



Again, this is Disney, remember? The source material has zero relevance.


----------



## Zero Angel

Mindfire said:


> I wasn't!  Were you a 70s or 80s kid by any chance? They say Gen-Xers tended to have less attentive parents.


80s



saellys said:


> Just so you're aware, "women's literature" is frequently classified that way for no other reason than that it was written by a woman. You're missing out on a lot.


I'm aware; that's why I put it in quotes. But also, many women write "women's literature" (the bad kind), so I'm still going to be leery. I'm not opposed to reading it, just leery. In fact, I'm less likely to be interested in something written by a woman than one that stars a woman. There's just so much garbage resembling the Lifetime channel or 50 Shades of Grey and all of that CRAP, and for some reason it is lauded as being "fantastic for women". 

I'm well aware that this is sexist, but I've been burned too many times. Luckily, it's usually pretty easy to get reviews and recommendations so I get to read authors that are a variety of genders (well, at least two genders). 



saellys said:


> I agree wholeheartedly with that observation. Seems like in that respect, at least, media targeted at boys does a better job of preparing the audience for life's unending tedium and disappointment.


I don't think stoicism is a good thing in general. Speaking personally, I was pretty sure my dad hated me for about 20 years of my life because he never showed emotion. Elsewise, I'm much more enthused by enthusiasm and emotion. Stoicism is a relatively recent ideal for men, isn't it? I'm fairly certain it was an American thing of the 1900s. Going back to middle ages, men freely cried and showed love/charity for those they cared about (of course, they probably never knew they were going to see them again).


----------



## Feo Takahari

Zero Angel said:


> Luckily, it's usually pretty easy to get reviews and recommendations so I get to read authors that are a variety of genders (well, at least two genders).



Agender authors represent! (And bigender, if we've got any. And twinsoul, not that I'm entirely clear what that even _means_.)



A. E. Lowan said:


> I also think we need to take the Classic Disney depictions off the table.  This stuff dates back DECADES when it was considered a good thing to tranquilize women who were unhappy being housewives.  The more modern movies are more fair to debate.



I agree with this. As role models go, Aurora's about a step down from Barbie, but some of the recent heroines have been at least decent. (For instance, I don't think Rapunzel was so bad, though admittedly Flynn was more active as a protagonist than she was.)

P.S. Also, correct me if I'm wrong on this--I haven't read 50 Shades--but isn't it the thematic opposite of a Lifetime movie? I can accept them as equally crap, but I'd imagine that someone who loves Lifetime movies would find 50 Shades appalling (and probably vice versa.)


----------



## saellys

Zero Angel said:


> I'm aware; that's why I put it in quotes. But also, many women write "women's literature" (the bad kind), so I'm still going to be leery. I'm not opposed to reading it, just leery. In fact, I'm less likely to be interested in something written by a woman than one that stars a woman. There's just so much garbage resembling the Lifetime channel or 50 Shades of Grey and all of that CRAP, and for some reason it is lauded as being "fantastic for women".
> 
> I'm well aware that this is sexist, but I've been burned too many times. Luckily, it's usually pretty easy to get reviews and recommendations so I get to read authors that are a variety of genders (well, at least two genders).



Yeah... that's _really freaking sexist_. Thanks for admitting it, I guess? I've been "burned" by countless male authors who reduce female characters to whores and corpses, or relegate them to the most minor of roles, or tokenize them as part of some dude's story, with equal amounts of crap writing, but it hasn't turned me off of "men's literature" (otherwise known as literature). 



Zero Angel said:


> I don't think stoicism is a good thing in general. Speaking personally, I was pretty sure my dad hated me for about 20 years of my life because he never showed emotion. Elsewise, I'm much more enthused by enthusiasm and emotion. Stoicism is a relatively recent ideal for men, isn't it? I'm fairly certain it was an American thing of the 1900s. Going back to middle ages, men freely cried and showed love/charity for those they cared about (of course, they probably never knew they were going to see them again).



What I meant by preparing the audience for life was that at the end of a Batman movie, he wins, but he still has problems and there's a sense of the neverending Sisyphusian task of singlehandedly maintaining order and justice. For Disney princesses, their problems have disappeared by the end of the third act. 

I can't speak to your generalization about male stoicism, but it kind of sounds like that whole false nostalgia thing to me.


----------



## saellys

Devor said:


> Just that two were made in the fifties, while Snow White dates to 1937.  That was it for Disney princesses until pretty much the 90s.
> 
> Snow White, Aurora and Cinderella are all pretty typical and reasonably positive portrayals for their time.  Why anyone cares about them now, fifty-to-eighty years later, goes back to the merchandising.



Precisely why they should _not_ be taken off the table as others have suggested. Young girls are still told they should consider these characters role models. They're arguably the three most popular Disney princesses in the pantheon.


----------



## Mindfire

saellys said:


> Precisely why they should _not_ be taken off the table as others have suggested. Young girls are still told they should consider these characters role models. They're arguably the three most popular Disney princesses in the pantheon.



The three most popular? I'd disagree. Cinderella has something of an enduring charm I'll grant you. But the other two fall a lot lower on the list. Aside from Cinderella, I'd say the most popular princesses are the ones that came out during the 90s Disney Renaissance, simply because those are when the most popular Disney _movies_ came out.


----------



## Steerpike

Just doing some quick searching online, it looks like Snow White, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), and Cinderella all remain among the most popular princesses. One site I saw had Ariel fourth after them. I don't see any hard figures from Disney (sales of merchandise among various princesses).

EDIT: It is worth noting that Disney actively promotes all of the princesses in its Disney Princess line, and in some ways the older, classic princesses are still a cornerstone. Disney Princess merchandise outsells Star Wars merchandise (and that's just the Disney Princess line, not Disney merchandise as a whole). So they're all very popular and well known among girls of today, even the ones that came out in movies long ago.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

saellys said:


> What I meant by preparing the audience for life was that at the end of a Batman movie, he wins, but he still has problems and there's a sense of the neverending Sisyphusian task of singlehandedly maintaining order and justice. For Disney princesses, their problems have disappeared by the end of the third act.
> 
> I can't speak to your generalization about male stoicism, but it kind of sounds like that whole false nostalgia thing to me.



Jumping away from the Disney princess it isn't the fact that the movie has a female protagonist that makes an automatic happy ending.  Take _The Emperor's New Groove_, _Hercules_, and _Tarzan_.  All male protagonists, all their problems gone by the end of the third act.  Cue the inspirational final theme.  (By the way, loved all three of these.  We're a Disney household.)  What makes this happen is that this is an expected formula from an animated Disney feature.  _Dinosaur_, on the other hand, DID end on a, for a Disney feature, rather stoic note because while the theme of survival of the group vs. survival of the fittest has been addressed and the group has indeed, mostly, survived, their world is still ending and life will never be the same.  But, _Dinosaur_ is a very different kind of animated feature (with a very strong female love interest) that actually scared the pee out of little kids during the first 5 minutes.

But, some parents saw "Disney" and didn't pay attention to the PG rating when they brought in their 4-year-olds.


----------



## Kit

saellys said:


> Seems like in that respect, at least, media targeted at boys does a better job of preparing the audience for life's unending tedium and disappointment.
> .



  LOL...... I had to give you rep because you made me snort Dr Pepper out my nose.


----------



## Kit

saellys said:


> The whole angle of making girls want to "be" a princess squicks me out. What does it even _mean_?
> .



I think a large part of it is that they just want to wear the frothy, sparkly dress and tiara. Somebody needs to make some cartoons with a kick-ass female superhero who wears a frothy, sparkly dress and tiara.


----------



## Steerpike

My daughter wore a sparkly, frothy princess dress and a tiara for Halloween. Then I put makeup on her and made her into a zombie. The effect on other kids was priceless.


----------



## saellys

Mindfire said:


> Aside from Cinderella, I'd say the most popular princesses are the ones that came out during the 90s Disney Renaissance, simply because those are when the most popular Disney _movies_ came out.



Ariel and Jasmine? I'll grant that Ariel is really popular because what little girl doesn't love to dress up as a mermaid, but I'd put Jasmine near the bottom of the pantheon in terms of how many girls buy her merchandise. (Possibly in part because her costume involves a bare midriff and I don't know a lot of parents who would be cool with that; Disney's official Ariel costumes are modified for tasteful coverage). 

Jasmine was one of the most positive depictions in any Disney film, even though she's not in the title; she had a personality and wants of her own, saw through Aladdin's disguise, and flat out told a room full of dudes that she was not there to be married off at their whims. Ended up enslaved by the villain and rescued by the hero, of course, but up until then everything went really well. And still her stuff doesn't sell. She was the go-to Disney princess for young girls who aren't white (if Disney's own promotional photos of girls wearing the Jasmine costume are any indication), at least until Tiana arrived. 

Ariel is, in my experience, significantly more popular--a step below the Big Three, as Steerpike pointed out. She has a distinct personality, a thirst for adventure, a neat collection of landlubber stuff, and a couple funny male sidekicks who are unmistakably second fiddle to her, not the other way around. And she makes a compelling mistake in her haste to go see the world. 

Then she spends the latter two thirds of her story _unable to speak_. Every action that contributes toward the resolution of her unfortunate circumstance is accomplished by some other character. She may as well have been in a coma like her princess predecessors. 

Point is, even if we bring it forward to the 90s, any agency the princesses have is what gets them _into_ trouble, not out of it.


----------



## Ireth

saellys said:


> Then she spends the latter two thirds of her story _unable to speak_. Every action that contributes toward the resolution of her unfortunate circumstance is accomplished by some other character. She may as well have been in a coma like her princess predecessors.



Well, some would argue that when Ariel can't speak is when her curious personality really shines through -- she explores the human world with reckless abandon, and her communication via body language, gestures and expressions is quite effective (until the whole "you're marrying the wrong woman, Eric!" bit, at least). And she does save Eric's life not once, but _twice_. How many other Disney princesses have done that?


----------



## Devor

saellys said:


> Precisely why they should _not_ be taken off the table as others have suggested. Young girls are still told they should consider these characters role models. They're arguably the three most popular Disney princesses in the pantheon.



It's not that I want them taken off the table, it's that I personally think people should target the problem more narrowly.  It's more accurate in my mind to say the movies themselves were fine, even great for their time, but that the ongoing merchandising surrounding them sucks, and skews the importance of what should just be another movie.  There's nothing wrong with Cinderella, but there's something wrong when you isolate her and hold her up as _the standard_, and create a caricature of her that's somewhat even detached from being just a story.

I mean, I totally get all of _that_, but I just want to separate it for the millions of people who actually do view Cinderella as just another movie they liked for whatever reason growing up.  There wouldn't be anything wrong with Cinderella, or any of the princesses even as a whole, if they had just run the normal course for movies.




Steerpike said:


> Just doing some quick searching online, it looks like Snow White, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), and Cinderella all remain among the most popular princesses. One site I saw had Ariel fourth after them. I don't see any hard figures from Disney (sales of merchandise among various princesses).



If Aurora and Snow White are popular, it's not something I understand, unless that represents more of a nostalgia by older women who may not have followed the newer releases, and still make decisions for their daughters.  If Ariel is listed fourth, though, that might just be the order of release.  I believe Aladdin was tops at the box office, but I don't know how that echoes with the merchandising.




saellys said:


> Yeah... that's _really freaking sexist_. Thanks for admitting it, I guess?



I wish I knew what to say here.  For me, I sometimes have to be careful with feminist literature because there are just a couple of feminist issues which as a Catholic I just don't want to read about.  But I make that determination by reading pages, or reviews, or by knowing the person who's recommending it.  I've never skipped a book just because a woman wrote it - that seems unjust, to me.

Growing up, the only fantasy novels to make any impression on me were Narnia, Tolkein and the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, followed in college with Harry Potter.  That's not a great selection of fantasy, but it's a pretty good split for both female writers and female protagonists, and not a background that would give me any reason to avoid anything written by anyone.


----------



## Steerpike

How about Belle? She seems pretty popular. She has agency, and rejects the idea that it is her lot to just be married to some provincial boor. She gives herself up to save her father, but doesn't take any guff from "the beast." Ultimately her story does become one where "true love" is the end game, but that seems to be a staple of the genre. Insofar as she and "the beast" are both pursuing that same goal, she does not seem to play second fiddle to him.


----------



## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> Just doing some quick searching online, it looks like Snow White, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), and Cinderella all remain among the most popular princesses. One site I saw had Ariel fourth after them. I don't see any hard figures from Disney (sales of merchandise among various princesses).
> 
> EDIT: It is worth noting that Disney actively promotes all of the princesses in its Disney Princess line, and in some ways the older, classic princesses are still a cornerstone. Disney Princess merchandise outsells Star Wars merchandise (and that's just the Disney Princess line, not Disney merchandise as a whole). So they're all very popular and well known among girls of today, even the ones that came out in movies long ago.



But how are we judging popular? By lists on websites or by what people actually like? How many kids nowadays have even _seen_ Snow White or Sleeping Beauty? But their parents, who grew up with the Disney Renaissance, will certainly show them those films.


----------



## Mindfire

saellys said:


> Ariel and Jasmine? I'll grant that Ariel is really popular because what little girl doesn't love to dress up as a mermaid, but I'd put Jasmine near the bottom of the pantheon in terms of how many girls buy her merchandise. (Possibly in part because her costume involves a bare midriff and I don't know a lot of parents who would be cool with that; Disney's official Ariel costumes are modified for tasteful coverage).
> 
> Jasmine was one of the most positive depictions in any Disney film, even though she's not in the title; she had a personality and wants of her own, saw through Aladdin's disguise, and flat out told a room full of dudes that she was not there to be married off at their whims. Ended up enslaved by the villain and rescued by the hero, of course, but up until then everything went really well. And still her stuff doesn't sell. She was the go-to Disney princess for young girls who aren't white (if Disney's own promotional photos of girls wearing the Jasmine costume are any indication), at least until Tiana arrived.
> 
> Ariel is, in my experience, significantly more popular--a step below the Big Three, as Steerpike pointed out. She has a distinct personality, a thirst for adventure, a neat collection of landlubber stuff, and a couple funny male sidekicks who are unmistakably second fiddle to her, not the other way around. And she makes a compelling mistake in her haste to go see the world.
> 
> Then she spends the latter two thirds of her story _unable to speak_. Every action that contributes toward the resolution of her unfortunate circumstance is accomplished by some other character. She may as well have been in a coma like her princess predecessors.
> 
> Point is, even if we bring it forward to the 90s, any agency the princesses have is what gets them _into_ trouble, not out of it.



I was actually referring to Belle, Mulan, and Pocahontas. I seem to remember all of these being more popular than Snow White and Aurora in my childhood. Their movies were definitely more watched.


----------



## Steerpike

They've pretty much all seen Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, as well as the rest of the movies.

I was just at Disney in L.A. last summer, and I can tell you the Snow White, Aurora, and Cinderella merchandise is still heavily in view. My guess is those princesses are still popular. Remember, they're not ONLY in the old movies, either. Disney has chapter books about them, videos with songs for the children to sing, and all kinds of other media tie-ins with new content featuring those older princesses.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Steerpike said:


> My daughter wore a sparkly, frothy princess dress and a tiara for Halloween. Then I put makeup on her and made her into a zombie. The effect on other kids was priceless.



I think I love you right now.


----------



## saellys

Ireth said:


> Well, some would argue that when Ariel can't speak is when her curious personality really shines through -- she explores the human world with reckless abandon, and her communication via body language, gestures and expressions is quite effective (until the whole "you're marrying the wrong woman, Eric!" bit, at least). And she does save Eric's life not once, but _twice_. How many other Disney princesses have done that?



Excellent points, but I still feel these positive aspects are overshadowed by her helplessness in the context of resolving her own story.



Devor said:


> It's not that I want them taken off the table, it's that I personally think people should target the problem more narrowly.  It's more accurate in my mind to say the movies themselves were fine, even great for their time, but that the ongoing merchandising surrounding them sucks, and skews the importance of what should just be another movie.  There's nothing wrong with Cinderella, but there's something wrong when you isolate her and hold her up as _the standard_, and create a caricature of her that's somewhat even detached from being just a story.
> 
> I mean, I totally get all of _that_, but I just want to separate it for the millions of people who actually do view Cinderella as just another movie they liked for whatever reason growing up.  There wouldn't be anything wrong with Cinderella, or any of the princesses even as a whole, if they had just run the normal course for movies.



Agreed.



Devor said:


> If Aurora and Snow White are popular, it's not something I understand, unless that represents more of a nostalgia by older women who may not have followed the newer releases, and still make decisions for their daughters.  If Ariel is listed fourth, though, that might just be the order of release.  I believe Aladdin was tops at the box office, but I don't know how that echoes with the merchandising.



I think moms' and grandmothers' nostalgia plays a pretty big role in the continued popularity of the most passive princesses. I also think Aurora's popularity among young girls is almost entirely due to wardrobe choices--she wears pink. Cinderella retained her classic Grimm ballgown the color of moonlight, and Snow White wears bright primary colors. For girls entering the phase where gender distinctions are super important, identifying as "girl" in every possible way becomes a priority. There is absolutely nothing more socially accepted as "girl" than the color pink, so they gravitate toward the most feminine possible princess.



Devor said:


> I wish I knew what to say here.  For me, I sometimes have to be careful with feminist literature because there are just a couple of feminist issues which as a Catholic I just don't want to read about.  But I make that determination by reading pages, or reviews, or by knowing the person who's recommending it.  I've never skipped a book just because a woman wrote it - that seems unjust, to me.
> 
> Growing up, the only fantasy novels to make any impression on me were Narnia, Tolkein and the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, followed in college with Harry Potter.  That's not a great selection of fantasy, but it's a pretty good split for both female writers and female protagonists, and not a background that would give me any reason to avoid anything written by anyone.



Real talk. Sometimes I hear crappy things in advance about a given book and avoid it if the advice comes from someone whose opinions I trust, but more often I'll just read it for myself to find out how bad it was. 



Steerpike said:


> How about Belle? She seems pretty popular. She has agency, and rejects the idea that it is her lot to just be married to some provincial boor. She gives herself up to save her father, but doesn't take any guff from "the beast." Ultimately her story does become one where "true love" is the end game, but that seems to be a staple of the genre. Insofar as she and "the beast" are both pursuing that same goal, she does not seem to play second fiddle to him.



Crap, I forgot Belle! I was actually a HUGE _Beauty and the Beast_ fan as a kid, concurrent with my _Jurassic Park_ obsession (which is still going strong). There's a pretty creeptastic veneer of Stockholm Syndrome over her story, but as a character she's fairly solid in that can describe her as a person, and not just the things that happen to her.


----------



## Zero Angel

saellys said:


> Yeah... that's _really freaking sexist_. Thanks for admitting it, I guess? I've been "burned" by countless male authors who reduce female characters to whores and corpses, or relegate them to the most minor of roles, or tokenize them as part of some dude's story, with equal amounts of crap writing, but it hasn't turned me off of "men's literature" (otherwise known as literature).


Let me rephrase slightly I suppose. I don't usually know or care about the gender of an author, and unless it's a famous author, I probably don't even care who the author is, but if for some reason it is MADE known to me that the author is female, as in, this is a selling point of the novel, then it is a very strong possibility that it will be the "women's lit" that I described before. And I think many people have made this argument in this thread although they may not have put it this way, but anything that is "for women" or "for girls" is usually crap.

That, I thought, was the _problem_ that many people would like to see fixed. If literature and media for girls and women gives them such terrible images of themselves and their role in society, relationships and in family, then what hope do we have for literature and media for everyone?


----------



## Scribble

I let my daughters watch Xena. I also let them run around whacking things with swords. But, sometimes they dress up like princesses. The issue is the volume of input. If ALL they see are passive girl characters, that is what they may understand is the norm. Already at 8, my daughter had begun to struggle with the "girly-girl" vs "tomboy" dichotomy. Her words. This is life on the playground, I can't engineer that, all I can do is talk with her.

Although she is too young for me to tell her about the finer points of human behavioral biology, I am trying, in my way, to teach her that people naturally make groups. Humans try to put people in one group or another, we can't stop doing it, it's how we are made. It helps us to figure out how to deal with people. Just as ants leave chemical trails to tell the other ants where to walk, just like the bees dance to tell the other bees where the flowers are, humans make groups and rules about who does what in which group.

So, while you can't change how people make groups or deal with them, you can change how they _see_ groups. I tell her, you can make your _own _group who can do "tomboy things" and wear "girly things". I cringe at the use of these words, there are stereotypes built into the grammar of them, but how else can you relate? 

All I can think to do is to tell her that it takes courage to make your own group, and sometimes the only person in the group is you, but when people see your courage, they will want to join it too. How cool would it be to start your own group? You can call it, "cool girls". They wear dresses, they wear jeans, they climb trees, they paint their nails. They can do anything.


----------



## saellys

Zero Angel said:


> Let me rephrase slightly I suppose. I don't usually know or care about the gender of an author, and unless it's a famous author, I probably don't even care who the author is, but if for some reason it is MADE known to me that the author is female, as in, this is a selling point of the novel, then it is a very strong possibility that it will be the "women's lit" that I described before. And I think many people have made this argument in this thread although they may not have put it this way, but anything that is "for women" or "for girls" is usually crap.
> 
> That, I thought, was the _problem_ that many people would like to see fixed. If literature and media for girls and women gives them such terrible images of themselves and their role in society, relationships and in family, then what hope do we have for literature and media for everyone?



Thanks for the clarification. I think we're on the same page about writers like Stephanie Meyer and E.L. James, but I don't see how avoiding stuff written by women is going to fix the problem. 

Just out of curiosity, do you consider Suzanne Collins' _Hunger Games_ trilogy "women's literature"? Or Kristin Cashore's _Graceling_? Elizabeth Moon's _The Deed of Paksenarrion_? They're all female-penned books with female protagonists. They seem to fit your criteria for "potential women's lit; best avoid," which means you really are missing out on a lot.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Zero Angel said:


> Let me rephrase slightly I suppose. I don't usually know or care about the gender of an author, and unless it's a famous author, I probably don't even care who the author is, but if for some reason it is MADE known to me that the author is female, as in, this is a selling point of the novel, then it is a very strong possibility that it will be the "women's lit" that I described before. And I think many people have made this argument in this thread although they may not have put it this way, but anything that is "for women" or "for girls" is usually crap.
> 
> That, I thought, was the _problem_ that many people would like to see fixed. If literature and media for girls and women gives them such terrible images of themselves and their role in society, relationships and in family, then what hope do we have for literature and media for everyone?



I think I hear what you're trying to say, and you remind me of a point brought up by Sherrilyn Kenyon in her Chronicles of Nick book _Infinity_ (I think), where her 14-year-old male protagonist is agonizing about his summer reading list being all about girl stuff - girls suffering from their bodies changing and girls suffering from social issues and girls discovering that men are all evil pigs only after "one thing."  And he wishes that just one book would tell them that most guys are basically decent and would make good, safe boyfriends.

So, maybe what you're saying is you feel that some "women's lit" isn't as fair as it could be?  

Kenyon, by the way, writes in "dude" in a way that just leaves me in awe.  Of course, she has the mad hax of having 3 teenage sons to use as source material.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Scribble said:


> I let my daughters watch Xena. I also let them run around whacking things with swords. But, sometimes they dress up like princesses. The issue is the volume of input. If ALL they see are passive girl characters, that is what they may understand is the norm. Already at 8, my daughter had begun to struggle with the "girly-girl" vs "tomboy" dichotomy. Her words. This is life on the playground, I can't engineer that, all I can do is talk with her.
> 
> Although she is too young for me to tell her about the finer points of human behavioral biology, I am trying, in my way, to teach her that people naturally make groups. Humans try to put people in one group or another, we can't stop doing it, it's how we are made. It helps us to figure out how to deal with people. Just as ants leave chemical trails to tell the other ants where to walk, just like the bees dance to tell the other bees where the flowers are, humans make groups and rules about who does what in which group.
> 
> So, while you can't change how people make groups or deal with them, you can change how they _see_ groups. I tell her, you can make your _own _group who can do "tomboy things" and wear "girly things". I cringe at the use of these words, there are stereotypes built into the grammar of them, but how else can you relate?
> 
> All I can think to do is to tell her that it takes courage to make your own group, and sometimes the only person in the group is you, but when people see your courage, they will want to join it too. How cool would it be to start your own group? You can call it, "cool girls". They wear dresses, they wear jeans, they climb trees, they paint their nails. They can do anything.



I do not remember where I ran into this, but I thought it was called for here...

Why I Bought Boys' Underwear For My Daughter


----------



## Steerpike

saellys said:


> Just out of curiosity, do you consider Suzanne Collins' _Hunger Games_ trilogy "women's literature"? Or Kristin Cashore's _Graceling_? Elizabeth Moon's _The Deed of Paksenarrion_? They're all female-penned books with female protagonists.



Thanks for mentioning Kristin Cashore. I like her a lot. I liked _Fire_ even better than _Graceling_. Have not read _Bitterblue_​ yet.


----------



## saellys

Steerpike said:


> Thanks for mentioning Kristin Cashore. I like her a lot. I liked _Fire_ even better than _Graceling_. Have not read _Bitterblue_​ yet.



I really need to finish _Graceling_. I found her writing a tad bit clumsy early on and lost my steam, but just now I'm craving it.


----------



## Zero Angel

saellys said:


> Thanks for the clarification. I think we're on the same page about writers like Stephanie Meyer and E.L. James, but I don't see how avoiding stuff written by women is going to fix the problem.
> 
> Just out of curiosity, do you consider Suzanne Collins' _Hunger Games_ trilogy "women's literature"? Or Kristin Cashore's _Graceling_? Elizabeth Moon's _The Deed of Paksenarrion_? They're all female-penned books with female protagonists.



I can't speak to the writing quality of the Hunger Games, but I never thought of it as women's literature and the movie (although terrible and in my opinion sexist to boot) did not strike me as a "women's movie". I haven't read the latter books you mentioned, but I've never heard Moon's books described as women's lit. 

Example of Women's Literature: The Handmaid's Tale.

Going back to Disney, if you thought the characters weren't hypersexualized enough, there is always J Scott Campbell's renditions of them, which keep coming up again and again on my Pinterest feed.


----------



## saellys

I'm not a huge Atwood fan or anything, but I've always thought _The Handmaid's Tale_ could be pretty beneficial reading for people of any gender.


----------



## Steerpike

saellys said:


> I really need to finish _Graceling_. I found her writing a tad bit clumsy early on and lost my steam, but just now I'm craving it.



Get _Fire_​ too


----------



## saellys

Steerpike said:


> Get _Fire_​ too



I think I downloaded that one at the same time because I'm a completist.


----------



## Scribble

A. E. Lowan said:


> I do not remember where I ran into this, but I thought it was called for here...
> 
> Why I Bought Boys' Underwear For My Daughter



This is great 

I raised a 20 year old daughter already, so I have been broken in, all my taboos about buying feminine undergarments are gone. My 8 year old is keen on this aspect, and we talk about it. She gets irritated that there is "every color" for boys, and pink for girls. We talk about it. I explain that the people who are making the clothes are afraid that people won't buy the other colors, so they don't make them, but that's silly because people don't buy them _because_ they don't make them. The people are afraid of not making money, and they don't understand how modern girls think. That's why they do it.

Lego started their "Friends" girl-oriented kits. The boxes are purple rather than pink. If you look at the playsets, they are very safe. Girls go to Olivia's house, they are veterinarians, they own bakeries. A slight improvement but not quite there. The rest of the toys: My Little Ponies, Barbie. I bought them Meccano, "regular" Lego. Microscope. Then, birthday party comes and all 8 kids' parents go out and buy "girl" presents. Jewelry kits, more Barbies, butterfly wings.

This is the stuff at their friends' houses. This is what a parent buys with their 25$ gift limit.

All I can do is talk to them. I don't want to drown them in gender awareness issues at such a young age either. I want them just to be who they are. It's not easy.


----------



## Zero Angel

saellys said:


> I'm not a huge Atwood fan or anything, but I've always thought _The Handmaid's Tale_ could be pretty beneficial reading for people of any gender.



I just don't like seeing women abused throughout an entire novel, which is another reason why I usually don't like tales that are classified as "women's lit". 

Talking about it as a social commentary is one element of it and I don't necessarily disagree that religious fundamentalism is wrong and so is slavery and sexism etc, but the enjoyment of the book is zero for me. 

...and I mean zero as in, no enjoyment, not as in, me. 

Even your words to describe it, "it could be pretty beneficial reading" makes it sound like a chore/medicine/something-to-learn-from-but-not-enjoy.


----------



## Zero Angel

Scribble said:


> This is great
> 
> I raised a 20 year old daughter already, so I have been broken in, all my taboos about buying feminine undergarments are gone. My 8 year old is keen on this aspect, and we talk about it. She gets irritated that there is "every color" for boys, and pink for girls. We talk about it. I explain that the people who are making the clothes are afraid that people won't buy the other colors, so they don't make them, but that's silly because people don't buy them _because_ they don't make them. The people are afraid of not making money, and they don't understand how modern girls think. That's why they do it.



Is that why? I think they do it deliberately to condition girls. 

In other news, I really can't stand pink as a primary color in an outfit. It's great for accents or highlights, but as the main color it is sorely lacking.


----------



## Chessie

Pink is terrible, which is why my future daughter will someday wear unisex clothing. I can't stand pink. I also think there's a lot of conditioning going on.


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## Scribble

Zero Angel said:


> Is that why? I think they do it deliberately to condition girls.



I don't believe there are any twirly-mustachioed villains orchestrating colors to condition girls. It is so widespread, it would _appear _to be so, but there are too many players and none of them coordinated - except by social pressure. 

If pink sells, you make pink. You make pink, and pink sells. Girls wear pink, so other girls, younger girls want pink too. They want to be like the other girls.

Who conditions girls? Girls condition other girls. 

Social pressure of peers is the greatest force in humanity. 

The trouble is that the options for girls are dictated by a market status quo. Who is going to risk a line of blue toys for girls? All the directors, marketing people, financial advisors in those companies, who is going to risk their jobs, their livelihood that pays their mortgage and feeds their kids, paycheck to paycheck, to be the one toy/clothing company to buck the trend? Not too many. That's why it keeps chugging.

It's not hopeless. What smart people who care can do is to come together to engineer the new "chic" for girls. It's like trying to hold back a river with a few stones. You need a lot of stones to change the course of a river.


----------



## Scribble

saellys said:


> I'm not a huge Atwood fan or anything, but I've always thought _The Handmaid's Tale_ could be pretty beneficial reading for people of any gender.



As a Canadian, and a fan of SF, this was "required reading" for me.  I haven't read _all _her work, but I love listening to her talks and interviews. Atwood is brilliant and deeply insightful.


----------



## Zero Angel

Scribble said:


> I don't believe there are any twirly-mustachioed villains orchestrating colors to condition girls. It is so widespread, it would _appear _to be so, but there are too many players and none of them coordinated - except by social pressure.
> 
> If pink sells, you make pink. You make pink, and pink sells. Girls wear pink, so other girls, younger girls want pink too. They want to be like the other girls.
> 
> Who conditions girls? Girls condition other girls.
> 
> Social pressure of peers is the greatest force in humanity.
> 
> The trouble is that the options for girls are dictated by a market status quo. Who is going to risk a line of blue toys for girls? All the directors, marketing people, financial advisors in those companies, who is going to risk their jobs, their livelihood that pays their mortgage and feeds their kids, paycheck to paycheck, to be the one toy/clothing company to buck the trend? Not too many. That's why it keeps chugging.
> 
> It's not hopeless. What smart people who care can do is to come together to engineer the new "chic" for girls. It's like trying to hold back a river with a few stones. You need a lot of stones to change the course of a river.



Speaking of societal pressure, can we discuss skinny jeans? If ever there was a fashion style for women (and now it's bleeding to guys! O_O) that made them look absurd, it would be skinny jeans. The only people it looks normal on are size 0s and 1s, everyone else looks absurd unless they're wearing high boots. And sizes are absurd too! Use inches (or centimeters I guess now)!

Edit: suppose this is off-topic, apologies. We've already covered how absurd women's outfits are in fantasy though...


----------



## A. E. Lowan

My college mentor found herself accidentally pregnant (which brings up all sorts of other issues involving how a woman with 3 PhD's from Berkley can get "knocked up" in the modern era) and being an ardent feminist vowed that when her daughter was born there would be absolutely no pink.  What did every single one of her enlightened and equally feminist faculty friends and students present to her at the baby shower?  Pink stuff.  How did the attempt at painting the nursery a woman-power shade of salmon turn out?  A livid shade of pink that you could literally see from 3 blocks away.

What is Rowan's favorite color?  You guessed it.

How many years have I been laughing at my friend?  10

My mentor is also an ardent environmentalist (let's just say she actually had me researching ways to compost kitty litter when I gave her a cat) and so vowed that Rowan would have only environmentally friendly, cloth diapers.

That lasted 3 days.

I think my point is that you can try too hard, sometimes.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Zero Angel said:


> Speaking of societal pressure, can we discuss skinny jeans? If ever there was a fashion style for women (and now it's bleeding to guys! O_O) that made them look absurd, it would be skinny jeans. The only people it looks normal on are size 0s and 1s, everyone else looks absurd unless they're wearing high boots. And sizes are absurd too! Use inches (or centimeters I guess now)!
> 
> Edit: suppose this is off-topic, apologies. We've already covered how absurd women's outfits are in fantasy though...



Yes!  One word for guys - *meggings.*


----------



## Mindfire

I despise skinny jeans. And the male versions are worse. I don't see how anyone can be comfortable in those.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Mindfire said:


> I despise skinny jeans. And the male versions are worse. I don't see how anyone can be comfortable in those.



I'm a bit too... well... comfortable around the bottom for skinny jeans.  I AM a writer, after all.  Got the whole Earth Mother thing going on.  But I know they bite in a bit on the female form.  Don't guys have it worse?  Why would they wear that?


----------



## Mindfire

A. E. Lowan said:


> I'm a bit too... well... comfortable around the bottom for skinny jeans.  I AM a writer, after all.  Got the whole Earth Mother thing going on.  But I know they bite in a bit on the female form.  Don't guys have it worse?  Why would they wear that?



"Fashion", and apparently girls find them attractive. For some reason. Fortunately I abandoned the futile struggle for female approval long ago and have never been beholden to the tyranny of fashion.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

I discovered a very long time ago that confidence is far sexier than anything I can wear, and have never looked back.  Therefore, I am comfortable... and happy.


----------



## Scribble

A. E. Lowan said:


> I'm a bit too... well... comfortable around the bottom for skinny jeans.  I AM a writer, after all.  Got the whole Earth Mother thing going on.  But I know they bite in a bit on the female form.  Don't guys have it worse?  Why would they wear that?



I fit better in jeans than I used to. I work in a video game company in a metropolitan city, mostly "hip" people 25-40. If I look around the office the style is mostly t-shirts and skinny jeans. I wouldn't wear them if I was still rocking the belly I had 75 lbs ago. Do we have it worse? At least women tend to gain weight proportionately. To my eye at least, it's fine. Men... it's all in the belly. We look oafish when overweight. A big guy in skinny jeans, doesn't work.

You have to wear clothing that suits your body type. I remember when the low-cut jeans were in for girls, and these poor young girls were cramming into these jeans with muffin tops popping over to fit the styles. 

Typically speaking, fashion trends flow from Europe/UK to North America. Most European countries, except for Greece, have 5-10% full-bodied people, while in the US, it's 30%. Basically, a third of the people this side of the Atlantic don't suit fashions that most people are wearing there. This creates an environment where a growing majority of people are faced with fashion images that don't match their body shapes, and this creates a ton of psychological problems for girls.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

I think that societal expectations for physical appearance are getting much harder on young men recently (and among young gay men they are BRUTAL), causing increasing cases of eating disorders and exercise disorders.  But more importantly, women in general DO wear our extra weight more proportionally because we're supposed to have it as insurance against lean times to help in feeding and raising small children.  It's called the Earth Mother figure for a reason.  We carry our fat on the outside, under our skin and over our organs.  Men, on the other hand, carry it mostly in their cores and then radiate it out, infiltrating their organs.  It's why obese men are so much sicker than obese women.  You guys just aren't meant to carry the load.


----------



## Scribble

My dad is eating and _not _exercising his way into very bad health. Heart problems, diabetes, the weight is killing his back and knees. My step-dad, super healthy. At 70, he can outrun me on the track! 

My guy fitness philosophy is this: We all get old. there are two kinds of old, the _good _kind, and the kind that lives in pain. You want to increase all your chances of being the _good _kind of old. 

If you look good in jeans, that's a nice side effect. 

If you do it _only_ to look good in jeans, you won't be happy. I feel _good_ and people say I look good, since I dropped the weight. I am always carrying that last 10 lbs. it might not look like much, but science shows it is not good for men, it shows there is more fat in my core around my organs, and that is not good. My kids need me around for the long haul, in good form. But... I like my Friday wine, I like my Sunday dessert. You've got to live a little, as they say.

I actually enjoy training, but I don't obsess about it. I just try to enjoy living in my skin as much as I can, for as long as I can.


----------



## Zero Angel

A. E. Lowan said:


> Yes!  One word for guys - *meggings.*



O_O

My fiancee and I recently went shopping for her. She despises skinny jeans in spite of being skinny, so the entire day consisted of us going to every single store, finding the one style of jeans that weren't "skinny" if they existed at all, then finding out they didn't have her size. It was like 5 hours of wasted life. I'm still quite perturbed by the entire thing.

There was a question about how guys do the skinny jeans. It's really not comfortable. I've been told by some that they tuck, but for more than one reason I refuse to do that. Nowadays at least they have skinny jeans for guys if they want them (in fact, they have TOO MANY), but 90 lbs ago in my life you usually had to buy girl jeans. Why can't we just have a selection of EVERYTHING??? I guess that's what the internet is for, but the sizes aren't standardized either!

But anyway, back to women in fantasy before the mods get back...


----------



## Scribble

> But anyway, back to women in fantasy before the mods get back...



True, this isn't an OT forum. Sorry, I got caught up in the conversation! 

Here's an on-topic question. 

Have there been any fantasy stories you've read that portrayed a realistic matriarchy? If it wasn't realistic, what was it that bothered you. If it was, what did they do well, in your opinion?


----------



## saellys

Chesterama said:


> Pink is terrible, which is why my future daughter will someday wear unisex clothing. I can't stand pink. I also think there's a lot of conditioning going on.



I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but I can't imagine what all this pink would be conditioning us _for_. 

Prepare yourself to constantly correct everyone who guesses your daughter's sex incorrectly, which will happen approximately thirty-six times per day, then deal with strangers getting huffy at you for dressing her ambiguously. I speak from almost two years of experience. People have this bizarre notion that it's crucial to know the biological sex of an outwardly androgynous infant before they interact with them, as if it makes any difference to their one-sided conversation. 

I requested no pink at my baby shower, and everyone did a wonderful job of finding gender-neutral gifts... but there were very few clothes. I dyed bold-colored onesies for my daughter before she was born; after she outgrew first batch in about a month, I had no time to make more. When I shop for her, I try to avoid the trappings of "girliness," which extends beyond pink to frills and bows and lace and glitter and "sassy" slogans and other useless augmentation that would just get in her way when she's trying to explore the world around her. I also try to avoid licensed characters whenever possible. (They're not even relevant to her interests since the only television shows she has ever seen are _Mister Rogers' Neighborhood_ and _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_.)

It's really, _really_ hard. Truly gender-neutral clothing is rare, and often stupidly expensive. And even if you do find it, you still have to deal with people saying "Hello, young man!" which may not outright bother you, but after the hundredth time it starts to rankle on principle. I gave up correcting people after someone told me it was "dangerous" to dress my kid that way, and eventually I started buying slightly more gendered (but practical) clothing, still in as broad a range of colors as I can find. 

Right now in my daughter's closet there is a T-shirt from Old Navy. It's bright pink. Wicket the Ewok is on it, along with the logo for _Return of the Jedi_. It was screenprinted with glitter ink. But you know what? I love that shirt, and I love how my kid looks in it, and she loves it too, and _the whole of parenting is compromise_. There are worse compromises than incorporating the color pink. A color cannot be inherently bad; it just is. Society's relatively recent overuse of pink for girls is gross and often depressing, but complete abstention from the color is an unnecessary limit.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

saellys said:


> Prepare yourself to constantly correct everyone who guesses your daughter's sex incorrectly, which will happen approximately thirty-six times per day, then deal with strangers getting huffy at you for dressing her ambiguously. I speak from almost two years of experience. People have this bizarre notion that it's crucial to know the biological sex of an outwardly androgynous infant before they interact with them, as if it makes any difference to their one-sided conversation.



Best answer I ever heard to the question "Boy or girl?" is from the movie _Undercover Blues_ and is one I fully intend to use one of these days.

"God, I hope so."


----------



## Chessie

Saellys, your comment just made me burst into laughter. I can't believe someone would suggest you dressing your kid in another way. LOL

Slightly back on topic, I noticed the villain I'm creating for my soon to be WIP was starting to resemble a stereotypical wicked witch. So I made her gorgeous and rich. And married with children. Her motivations deepened but I like this new twist since it makes her a bit more human. She's still a nasty sorceress but I enjoy that part of her.


----------



## CupofJoe

Scribble said:


> Have there been any fantasy stories you've read that portrayed a realistic matriarchy? If it wasn't realistic, what was it that bothered you. If it was, what did they do well, in your opinion?


I haven't seen what I would call a matriarchy. In the few stories I've read they were a conventional patriarchy with women instead of men. I would hope for something new and different and not just find-&-replace king for queen...
I would hope for a different approach from a female dominated society to that of a male.
I've worked with male and female bosses for 25 years and yes - they have all been different.
but I felt that the genders were more similar internally as groups than any other facet.
In general the men were dictative and political whereas the women were collaborative and open. Maybe that is a clichÃ© but maybe it's true as well.


----------



## Scribble

CupofJoe said:


> In general the men were dictative and political whereas the women were collaborative and open. Maybe that is a clichÃ© but maybe it's true as well.



I've had 3 women bosses over the years. The first two were authoritarian and political, working in a very "boy's club" corporate environment. They were far stronger and brighter than the 25 other department directors who were all men, but they _had_ to be.

My last boss who was a woman embraced the collaborative and open mode that you describe. I felt that she was very naturally "a woman" in her role, being herself, leading through collaboration and not dictation. When I came from that other world, I was used to barking orders and having them followed, putting people against the wall if they didn't do what I told them. I had the authority, I was used to using it. When she hired me, I delivered projects in three months that had been floundering for years. However, I stepped on a few fragile egos - one VP wanted me fired. The others came to my defense, saying I was in the right. This was in the executive meeting, I didn't even know!

I have a tough job. I report to the COO, and my clients are the CEO, the VPs, and the directors. I am trying to push my vision for our systems to people who technically I report to. From her, I learned how to "garden". How to work with people to lead when you aren't in charge. How to get people to take risks, and that is through trust, by being open. When you are able to make mistakes, you give other people the freedom to make mistakes, and that is how we take risks. When you are super-smart and authoritative, everyone is afraid to voice their opinion. 

If they have doubts in your project, they may be afraid to voice them. By nurturing a collaborative environment where we are free to question, to doubt, to make suggestions that might sound dumb, then we move forward. We avoid failing based on the wrong idea of one person at the top. We take advantage of our collective knowledge and reasoning.

That's the sort of thing I learned from her. To me, that is what I would expect to see in a realistic matriarchy, a kind of collaborative hive, where the queen bee is making executive decision, but based on the communal results of women. Otherwise, you have the male based hierarchy structure which works perfectly well in military engagements, but certainly less healthy in managing modern societies.

Based on brain science and personal experience, women appear to have wider association. Where men are more compartmentalized and role based, I would expect a matriarchy to be less role based, and more committee based. Where in a patriarchy you have a single male answerable for all defenses, in a matriarchy, I would imagine a group responsible with links to other groups, a sort of multi-role situation.


----------



## Mindfire

CupofJoe said:


> I haven't seen what I would call a matriarchy. In the few stories I've read they were a conventional patriarchy with women instead of men. I would hope for something new and different and not just find-&-replace king for queen...
> I would hope for a different approach from a female dominated society to that of a male.



I doubt it. Whenever one group of humans claims supremacy over another group, it pretty much always turns out the same. For example, despite being on totally opposite ends of the political spectrum, fascism and communism are eerily similar in practice.


----------



## Scribble

Mindfire said:


> I doubt it. Whenever one group of humans claims supremacy over another group, it pretty much always turns out the same. For example, despite being on totally opposite ends of the political spectrum, fascism and communism are eerily similar in practice.



And in the west we've revamped feudalism into serfdom under credit slavery. The trouble with human societies in reality in that we never, or rarely, get a clean slate or perfect isolation. We've always got to deal with the old mess, we may try to get rid of it, but really we are always building on top of it. It's easy to conceive of a fantasy utopia. Marxism is an elegant idea, but the path to it in several experiments is communism, which like capitalism, is full of both good and bad things. Both are good for people at the top, bad for people at the bottom. 

The novel still serves as the best way to explore different kinds of societies. If we follow the chain, we find a series of people trying to create better forms of society through reforms, and I believe this is where we get our ideas. I believe in equality, not the supremacy of one sex or the other. Through equality we will find our way to better societies. 

It is through the imagination of what other forms societies could take that we come to understand our own better, and enable ourselves to make more intelligent and insightful decisions about it. A purely matriarchal society would be no more fair than a patriarchal one, but we could learn about it's strengths and the weaknesses of our own model.


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## Mindfire

I think an interesting story idea would be to have travelers from a male-dominated society be captured by warriors from a female-dominated society who escort them to their leader. Along the way, the travelers speculate on what the government of a society built by women would be like, only to discover once they arrive... that everything is exactly the same, just reversed.


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## Steerpike

Read Sheri Tepper's _The Gate to Women's Country_​. Not only a great read, but deals with a matriarchal system.


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## A. E. Lowan

Mindfire said:


> I think an interesting story idea would be to have travelers from a male-dominated society be captured by warriors from a female-dominated society who escort them to their leader. Along the way, the travelers speculate on what the government of a society built by women would be like, only to discover once they arrive... that everything is exactly the same, just reversed.



You know, it's kind of awesome you said that.  We're actually working on a space opera with that exact theme.  A female-dominated space-faring empire encounters and conquers a (basically) stone-age race of warriors who are, while not exactly male-dominated, feature very large, very skilled male warriors.  Culture clash hijinks ensue as the rigidly conservative Empress comes into conflict with her socially liberal and eventually rebellious heir.  The themes for this series will be sexism (obviously), racism, and classism (the empire is a slave-owning culture).  Societally, we're basically taking Western gender politics and turning them upside down.  Just because the culture is female dominated does not make it peaceful - it is militaristic and aggressively expansive.  It is also pathologically eco-friendly, viewing poor planet stewardship as a good reason for planetary conquest (look out, Earth!).  Citizenship is an earned privilege, not a right, and men are not citizens.  They belong to their mothers, then their wives, then their daughters.

As much fun as this culture is to write about, what we are discovering is that the language itself is HARD.  You don't realize how gendered our language is until you change it.  For example, I'll be a little crude.  Two soldiers are talking, and one admires the other's bravery by telling him he has "balls."  Our American women do the same thing.  But these aliens sure wouldn't.  Then we have weapons.  These women wouldn't use swords or anything of a phallic nature.  Gender domination in language and culture is fascinating to think about, and hard to write, but when you really get into playing with it the possibilities are endless.


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## Scribble

> These women wouldn't use swords or anything of a phallic nature.



Would they use... _vulvar _weapons? How would those work exactly? Maybe don't answer that.


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## A. E. Lowan

Scribble said:


> Would they use... _vulvar _weapons? How would those work exactly? Maybe don't answer that.



Well, they're vaguely feline, so they use fist weapons and claws, so we sort of get a minor pass on that.  But yes, we're trying to figure out a more vulvar or engulfing mindset to war and combat rather than a phallic or penetrative.  Being feline, they do think in terms of slashing and cutting, but stabbing and penetration is not a go-to, psychologically.


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## Scribble

I tossed around some ideas on my visitor message page, feel free to borrow or steal 

The Vultex - a hand-held, seed-shaped object that expands to form energy weaves.

Used singly, it can create a net, that envelops the target, immobilizing it. Maybe strangulation, or asphyxiation for fatal attacks. It could form an energy body armor to deflect piercing weapons.

They can also use it in conjunction with others to create an interlinking web, the more participants, the stronger the web. Also can be used as a shield. It enables a sort of visual coordinated telepathy, to help the group visualize the structure they need.

It also has other uses: 

Over time, it can draw atoms from the surrounding and form solid structures, sort of like a mold. It could be used to create a bridge, a tool, a splint for a broken limb, binders (handcuffs). They share and learn recipes. An interesting twist on the idea of 3D printing.

Heck, they could even weave the buildings they need, creating organic, strong, but elegant architectures. Several sisters maintaining the weave for long periods, perhaps as part of a ritual to keep focus. When a woman comes of age, they "sing" her a new house of her own, but connected to her mother, sisters, etc... 

The substance... maybe some kind of calcium carbonate, the same substance that sea shells are made of. That would make them strong, but not indestructible. They have to have a weakness.

Wouldn't that be a perfect Venusian civilization, where the cities are made of giant sea shells?


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## A. E. Lowan

Scribble said:


> I tossed around some ideas on my visitor message page, feel free to borrow or steal
> 
> The Vultex - a hand-held, seed-shaped object that expands to form energy weaves.
> 
> Used singly, it can create a net, that envelops the target, immobilizing it. Maybe strangulation, or asphyxiation for fatal attacks. It could form an energy body armor to deflect piercing weapons.
> 
> They can also use it in conjunction with others to create an interlinking web, the more participants, the stronger the web. Also can be used as a shield. It enables a sort of visual coordinated telepathy, to help the group visualize the structure they need.
> 
> It also has other uses:
> 
> Over time, it can draw atoms from the surrounding and form solid structures, sort of like a mold. It could be used to create a bridge, a tool, a splint for a broken limb, binders (handcuffs). They share and learn recipes. An interesting twist on the idea of 3D printing.
> 
> Heck, they could even weave the buildings they need, creating organic, strong, but elegant architectures. Several sisters maintaining the weave for long periods, perhaps as part of a ritual to keep focus. When a woman comes of age, they "sing" her a new house of her own, but connected to her mother, sisters, etc...
> 
> The substance... maybe some kind of calcium carbonate, the same substance that sea shells are made of. That would make them strong, but not indestructible. They have to have a weakness.
> 
> Wouldn't that be a perfect Venusian civilization, where the cities are made of giant sea shells?



Oh, that is awesomely perfect!  Biotech is their thing (no cold robotics for these ladies) - I can see so much potential here.  Thank you so much!


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## Mindfire

Scribble said:


> Would they use... _vulvar _weapons? How would those work exactly? Maybe don't answer that.



Okay, this is when all this quasi-Freudian stuff goes too far. A sword isn't shaped like it is in order to resemble a phallus (well, except for a few African cultures). It's shaped that way because thousands of years of experimenting have proved it's the most practical and efficient shape for butchering the other guy.



A. E. Lowan said:


> Well, they're vaguely feline, so they use fist weapons and claws, so we sort of get a minor pass on that.  But yes, we're trying to figure out a more vulvar or engulfing mindset to war and combat rather than a phallic or penetrative.  Being feline, they do think in terms of slashing and cutting, but stabbing and penetration is not a go-to, psychologically.



See, this is what I mean. You don't stab someone because somewhere in the back of your mind stabbing = lolpenis. You stab people because stab wounds are harder to repair and thus more likely to be lethal. Not everything is gender politics. Some things are simply practical. And sometimes a cigar is _just_ a cigar.


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## A. E. Lowan

Mindfire said:


> Okay, this is when all this quasi-Freudian stuff goes too far. A sword isn't shaped like it is in order to resemble a phallus (well, except for a few African cultures). It's shaped that way because thousands of years of experimenting have proved it's the most practical and efficient shape for butchering the other guy.



Note - Butchering the other "guy."  Granted, it was highly theoretical at the time, but the phallic origins of our bladed weapons was very much a subject of debate among the academics we talked to when we were doing our initial research for this project.  And yes, I was a Women's Studies minor in university.  And as all our cultures do ultimately derive from Africa, saying a bladed weapon resembles a phallus is not much of a stretch.  Going further and saying that a culture that does not see the phallus as an object of aggression would not be prone to weaponize it is also not much of a stretch.





Mindfire said:


> See, this is what I mean. You don't stab someone because somewhere in the back of your mind stabbing = lolpenis. You stab people because stab wounds are harder to repair and thus more likely to be lethal. Not everything is gender politics. Some things are simply practical. And sometimes a cigar is _just_ a cigar.



Stab wounds are actually easier to repair than slices.  It's why the scimitar is a more lethal weapon that the broadsword.  But, I digress, as usual.

You are right.  Sometimes, a cigar really is just a cigar.  And if you read the Greeks, a swallow is a swallow.  But, in the mind... yeah, things get interesting.  Occam's Razor - if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck... add an "i" to that and I'll get banned.


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## Scribble

Freud went a little too far, I think we all agree. Knowing this, it's fun to play with those ideas. Maybe just me, I'm weird like that. 

I do like the concept of imagining a development of warfare coming from a collaborative approach rather than a competitive one. Males in most species compete for mating. This evolves a certain kind of behavior. The male mode of combat evolved from mate competition into group warfare. 

Combat techniques developed by collaboration are designed to reduce risk to the group. Combat techniques developed by competition are based on individual strengths and and individual aggression, with the group protection at a lower priority. It makes sense that warfare would be based on models already practiced: in our utopia of female management..  containment of malefactors, working as a group to diffuse a situation, working together to defend and protect, rather than to seek and destroy.


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## Mindfire

A. E. Lowan said:


> Stab wounds are actually easier to repair than slices.  It's why the scimitar is a more lethal weapon that the bronadsword.  But, I digress, as usual.



Stab wounds are most definitely not easier to repair. If you get slashed, as long as the cut misses your major arteries, you'll be okay with medical attention. A stab wound however, all it takes is a couple inches to hit something vital. Plus multiple layers of tissue have been punctured. Cuts can be sewn up. If you have multiple stab wounds, especially with something serrated, it's a surgeon's nightmare. Plus, a stab or thrust is usually faster, more efficient, and harder to block than a slash is.


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## Feo Takahari

Scribble said:


> Freud went a little too far, I think we all agree. Knowing this, it's fun to play with those ideas. Maybe just me, I'm weird like that.
> 
> I do like the concept of imagining a development of warfare coming from a collaborative approach rather than a competitive one. Males in most species compete for mating. This evolves a certain kind of behavior. The male mode of combat evolved from mate competition into group warfare.
> 
> Combat techniques developed by collaboration are designed to reduce risk to the group. Combat techniques developed by competition are based on individual strengths and and individual aggression, with the group protection at a lower priority. It makes sense that warfare would be based on models already practiced: in our utopia of female management..  containment of malefactors, working as a group to diffuse a situation, working together to defend and protect, rather than to seek and destroy.



The Spartans, known to be ridiculously obsessed with masculinity, told stories in which they portrayed their combat as competitive--that is to say, they didn't describe formations, they just talked about how this and that champion on their side butchered this and that champion on the other side. (_300_ isn't accurate history, but it's pretty accurate to the kind of stories the Spartans told about themselves.) However, when the Spartans actually fought in real life, they did so in formation, working together to keep each other alive. When you're trying not to die, practicality beats pride.


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## Devor

Mindfire said:


> Okay, this is when all this quasi-Freudian stuff goes too far. A sword isn't shaped like it is in order to resemble a phallus (well, except for a few African cultures). It's shaped that way because thousands of years of experimenting have proved it's the most practical and efficient shape for butchering the other guy.



I had an ad management professor who would disagree with you.  He spent a whole lecture - having given everyone warning - showing the sexual imagery in something like a hundred ads which otherwise seemed pretty inconspicuous.  Most of the class thought he was crazy, and some people filed complaints.  All I remember was two drops of lotion falling off the tip of a slender bottle, and a study that said women (and just women) were in revolt at the prospect of changing the packaging of toothpaste.

Don't look at me.

But I do think we can say, whatever subtextual imagery some people might be affected by, many more are not. There's no way the shape of a sword would survive if it wasn't the most effective.




Scribble said:


> Would they use... _vulvar _weapons? How would those work exactly? Maybe don't answer that.



You mean something shaped kind of like a shield?


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## Mindfire

Scribble said:


> Freud went a little too far, I think we all agree. Knowing this, it's fun to play with those ideas. Maybe just me, I'm weird like that.
> 
> I do like the concept of imagining a development of warfare coming from a collaborative approach rather than a competitive one. Males in most species compete for mating. This evolves a certain kind of behavior. The male mode of combat evolved from mate competition into group warfare.
> 
> Combat techniques developed by collaboration are designed to reduce risk to the group. Combat techniques developed by competition are based on individual strengths and and individual aggression, with the group protection at a lower priority. It makes sense that warfare would be based on models already practiced: in our utopia of female management..  containment of malefactors, working as a group to diffuse a situation, working together to defend and protect, rather than to seek and destroy.



So basically, all your soldiers would be hoplites. Or legionnaires I suppose.


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## Scribble

Mindfire said:


> So basically, all your soldiers would be hoplites. Or legionnaires I suppose.



What I am imagining (and I am kind of hijacking someone else's story with my ideas....) these are women not lining up in ranks like men would. Ranks remove individual identity from men. This is done to make them subject to orders. Also, that kind of organization works when you have things in your hands to hit people with. 

Women would keep their identity, and work collaboratively rather than sacrificing the first line. The weapon I imagined are weaves of energy, used as shields, as webs, as killing fields, to funnel enemies, to capture, immobilize, weaving, taunting, luring, and then killing. It's fantasy combat with weapons and people who don't exist, but I think the principles can hold. Not hive mind, but something like it. How do lionesses hunt? How do spiders weave? How does the black widow mate?

I would imagine something more... organic. Clusters of women operating in a very different mode of combat. They would be subtle, seemingly chaotic at times to the eye of a man, but actually working in tight concert, only in patterns that are iterative. I am talking about a style of combat that rises out of womanliness, and not evolving from the roots of maleness. 

I would even go so far as to compare combat paradigms using our different modes of achieving orgasms. 

Man rushes forward and fires. Done.

Woman... slow and subtle building, increasing pressure and tempo, and then crashing waves, and then receding waves.
Repeat as many times as you like.

I'm trying to be funny here, and hopefully not offensive...  but, the point I am making is if you want to imagine a style of combat evolved by women from the earliest point of history, based on the nature of women, you have to take all the things men do and think is a good idea and throw it out the window. What to replace that with takes some imagination, but this is fantasy. We don't have a matriarchal culture of women who use energy weaves to fight. Yet.


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## Kit

Mindfire said:


> Stab wounds are most definitely not easier to repair. If you get slashed, as long as the cut misses your major arteries, you'll be okay with medical attention. A stab wound however, all it takes is a couple inches to hit something vital. Plus multiple layers of tissue have been punctured. Cuts can be sewn up. If you have multiple stab wounds, especially with something serrated, it's a surgeon's nightmare. Plus, a stab or thrust is usually faster, more efficient, and harder to block than a slash is.



Unless you luck out and hit something really good with your stab, your foe is likely to be able to keep fighting you for LONGER than if you slash him. If you get some good slashes, he will start to bleed out. That will weaken a person and make them lose consciousness and die within a few minutes if they're really gushing. Stab wounds often don't bleed much (outwardly, at first). Many people don't even realize for a decent while that they have in fact been stabbed. Additionally, it's much harder to keep ahold of your weapon and- er- remove it from the target.

As far as the long-term fate of that person- especially without modern medical care- yeah, the stabs (even if you didn't hit anything vital) are probably going to do for him sooner or later- infection if nothing else. But I'm assuming that most people are going to be far more concerned with the *immediate* viability of their opponent.


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## Mindfire

Scribble said:


> What I am imagining (and I am kind of hijacking someone else's story with my ideas....) these are women not lining up in ranks like men would. Ranks remove individual identity from men. This is done to make them subject to orders. Also, that kind of organization works when you have things in your hands to hit people with.
> 
> Women would keep their identity, and work collaboratively rather than sacrificing the first line. The weapon I imagined are weaves of energy, used as shields, as webs, as killing fields, to funnel enemies, to capture, immobilize, weaving, taunting, luring, and then killing. It's fantasy combat with weapons and people who don't exist, but I think the principles can hold. Not hive mind, but something like it. How do lionesses hunt? How do spiders weave? How does the black widow mate?
> 
> I would imagine something more... organic. Clusters of women operating in a very different mode of combat. They would be subtle, seemingly chaotic at times to the eye of a man, but actually working in tight concert, only in patterns that are iterative. I am talking about a style of combat that rises out of womanliness, and not evolving from the roots of maleness.
> 
> I would even go so far as to compare combat paradigms using our different modes of achieving orgasms.
> 
> Man rushes forward and fires. Done.
> 
> Woman... slow and subtle building, increasing pressure and tempo, and then crashing waves, and then receding waves.
> Repeat as many times as you like.
> 
> I'm trying to be funny here, and hopefully not offensive...  but, the point I am making is if you want to imagine a style of combat evolved by women from the earliest point of history, based on the nature of women, you have to take all the things men do and think is a good idea and throw it out the window. What to replace that with takes some imagination, but this is fantasy. We don't have a matriarchal culture of women who use energy weaves to fight. Yet.



The problem with this whole idea is simply this: where do the energy weaves come from? If you're saying that this style of fighting has been evolving ever since the race's inception that's fine, but once you really think about it you realize that things like energy weaves aren't going to be readily accessible to a primitive civilization. So there's nothing for these tactics to evolve _from_. There's no root or plausible anthropological source. See, modern weapons evolved from ancient weapons, which evolved from prehistoric weapons, which were made of things you could find lying around: sticks and rocks that could be sharpened and lashed together into primitive spears and such. What is the "ancestor" of the energy weave? Rope? Rope is good for building _traps_, but makes for a very poor weapon. Unless making these "weaves" is an innate talent of their species or a form of magic that their race discovered very early on in history, I see no reason they would not have developed the weapons and fighting styles that we view as conventional.


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## Feo Takahari

I think you're drastically--hell, I'll say it, _offensively_--underestimating the competence and capability of male tacticians. Soldiers follow orders to allow the entire army to function under one strategy, but a good tactician knows that captains in the field may see opportunities he didn't expect, and gives them leave to take advantage of them. He also knows that acting unpredictably, in ways the enemy can't foresee to counter, gives him a massive advantage.

P.S. How on Earth is a system where soldiers work together under a single strategy not "collaborative"?


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## Mindfire

Kit said:


> Unless you luck out and hit something really good with your stab, your foe is likely to be able to keep fighting you for LONGER than if you slash him. If you get some good slashes, he will start to bleed out. That will weaken a person and make them lose consciousness and die within a few minutes if they're really gushing. Stab wounds often don't bleed much (outwardly, at first). Many people don't even realize for a decent while that they have in fact been stabbed. Additionally, it's much harder to keep ahold of your weapon and- er- remove it from the target.
> 
> As far as the long-term fate of that person- especially without modern medical care- yeah, the stabs (even if you didn't hit anything vital) are probably going to do for him sooner or later- infection if nothing else. But I'm assuming that most people are going to be far more concerned with the *immediate* viability of their opponent.



I'm not convinced. It seems to me that, unless you hit a critical blood vessel, slashes will wear down your opponent over time, whereas a few good stabs to the intestines, or if your blade is shaped right, between the ribs and into the chest cavity, is pretty much game over. And as I mentioned, the thrust is quicker, more efficient, and harder to block or avoid than the slash is.


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## Mindfire

Feo Takahari said:


> I think you're drastically--hell, I'll say it, _offensively_--underestimating the competence and capability of male tacticians. Soldiers follow orders to allow the entire army to function under one strategy, but a good tactician knows that captains in the field may see opportunities he didn't expect, and gives them leave to take advantage of them. He also knows that acting unpredictably, in ways the enemy can't foresee to counter, gives him a massive advantage.
> 
> P.S. How on Earth is a system where soldiers work together under a single strategy not "collaborative"?



I think what Scribble is trying to do is imagine some sort of system that is both collaborative _and_ non-hierarchical. I don't see it happening, but points for creativity I guess.


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## Scribble

Mindfire said:


> The problem with this whole idea is simply this: where do the energy weaves come from? If you're saying that this style of fighting has been evolving ever since the race's inception that's fine, but once you really think about it you realize that things like energy weaves aren't going to be readily accessible to a primitive civilization. So there's nothing for these tactics to evolve _from_. There's no root or plausible anthropological source. See, modern weapons evolved from ancient weapons, which evolved from prehistoric weapons, which were made of things you could find lying around: sticks and rocks that could be sharpened and lashed together into primitive spears and such. What is the "ancestor" of the energy weave? Rope? Rope is good for building _traps_, but makes for a very poor weapon. Unless making these "weaves" is an innate talent of their species or a form of magic that their race discovered very early on in history, I see no reason they would not have developed the weapons and fighting styles that we view as conventional.



This is fantasy, we can make up whatever we like. Think primitively of a fishing people. Ropes, nets, bolas.  Maybe some kind of fly fishing. Maybe they used some kind of semi-sentient vines. Barbed nets?

If I put some time thinking about I am sure I could come up with some more ideas, this is off the cuff.

Perhaps they never invented the bow. Maybe they have short knives (or claws) in close combat.

This had to develop from hunting or fishing strategies. Which then became elaborated with culture, with advancing technologies, but the core idiom remains the same.


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## Scribble

Feo Takahari said:


> I think you're drastically--hell, I'll say it, _offensively_--underestimating the competence and capability of male tacticians. Soldiers follow orders to allow the entire army to function under one strategy, but a good tactician knows that captains in the field may see opportunities he didn't expect, and gives them leave to take advantage of them. He also knows that acting unpredictably, in ways the enemy can't foresee to counter, gives him a massive advantage.
> 
> P.S. How on Earth is a system where soldiers work together under a single strategy not "collaborative"?



I'm over-simplifying for the sake of creating the idea. I don't want to get caught in the weeds comparing men. The exercise is to imagine how a very different system can arise if the roots are different. We bootstrap on top of the old. The end result isn't necessarily the best, it's simply the best we can do based on what we had before.


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## Mindfire

Scribble said:


> What I am imagining (and I am kind of hijacking someone else's story with my ideas....) these are women not lining up in ranks like men would. Ranks remove individual identity from men. This is done to make them subject to orders. Also, that kind of organization works when you have things in your hands to hit people with.



Ranks are used to make sure each soldier knows what his job is and to make group organization and direction more efficient. When the enemy comes charging over the hill, there simply isn't time to take a vote. Also, soldiers don't sacrifice their identity. Things like callsigns, nicknames, and spray tags on fighter jets are evidence of that. Instead a soldier simply recognizes that his identity is a small part of a larger identity. You take care of the group, the group takes care of you. It's like a family in some respects.



Scribble said:


> Women would keep their identity, and work collaboratively rather than sacrificing the first line. The weapon I imagined are weaves of energy, used as shields, as webs, as killing fields, to funnel enemies, to capture, immobilize, weaving, taunting, luring, and then killing. It's fantasy combat with weapons and people who don't exist, but I think the principles can hold. Not hive mind, but something like it. How do lionesses hunt? How do spiders weave? How does the black widow mate?
> 
> I would imagine something more... organic. Clusters of women operating in a very different mode of combat. They would be subtle, seemingly chaotic at times to the eye of a man, but actually working in tight concert, only in patterns that are iterative. I am talking about a style of combat that rises out of womanliness, and not evolving from the roots of maleness.
> 
> Woman... slow and subtle building, increasing pressure and tempo, and then crashing waves, and then receding waves. Repeat as many times as you like.



I believe the phrase you're searching for is "guerrilla warfare".


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## Mindfire

Scribble said:


> This is fantasy, we can make up whatever we like. Think primitively of a fishing people. Ropes, nets, bolas.  Maybe some kind of fly fishing. Maybe they used some kind of semi-sentient vines. Barbed nets?
> 
> If I put some time thinking about I am sure I could come up with some more ideas, this is off the cuff.
> 
> Perhaps they never invented the bow. Maybe they have short knives (or claws) in close combat.
> 
> This had to develop from hunting or fishing strategies. Which then became elaborated with culture, with advancing technologies, but the core idiom remains the same.



Interesting ideas. Okay, so this race would have to have originated in a place where they were the unchallenged apex predators- no large animals to fight off or hunt and force them to develop conventional weapons. There would also be no trees or rocks nearby to provide materials for making spears, bows, or arrows. But there would be plenty of grasses to weave rough clothing and ropes. So they would have developed in a savannah area with some rivers, or perhaps a marsh or delta. Presuming they're omnivores and not vegetarians, their main source of meat would have been fish and small animals they caught in snares or traps. Early on in their development they discovered magic, which they started using to make weaves because that's the kind of technology they were familiar with. Now, if you want this to be a group-focused culture, then staying with the group has to offer more survival options than striking out alone. In an area with no natural predators, your best bet will probably be the elements. Perhaps regular bad weather that's easier to cope with as a group than as an individual.


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## Mindfire

Something else that comes to mind. What made this society develop into a matriarchy? One possibility is that females are physically stronger than the males of this race, but that mirrors humans too much for what you seem to be aiming at, plus physical strength is a moot point survival-wise in a culture that's developed a place where it's largely irrelevant (no big animals to bring down or fight off, no heavy objects that need lifting). Their discovery of magic and complex traps so early in their culture's development would imply that they're very intelligent. Perhaps females of the species are naturally cleverer and more artistic? In this case, intelligence and artistic ability are also the culture's chief values. Intelligence and artistic ability would also be how an individual makes expresses their identity within the group and make their unique mark on the world. In order for this not to develop into a hierarchical structure, you have to have them value variety more than quantity or quality: not "who can make the most" or "who can make the best" but rather the idea that "everyone's is different, and these different pieces together make something better than the sum of its parts"- a sort of tapestry or quilt-like mindset that would also find its way into their government.

Now, how do females select mates? In humans, men usually select for beauty, which signals fertility, while women counter-select for physical strength or other resources that demonstrate ability to provide. In a female-dominated species where intelligence and artistic ability are chiefly valued, how does mate selection work? Do males pursue females? Do females pursue males? Or did they never develop the pursuit-response model and instead take some kind of third option? What does each sex select for?


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## A. E. Lowan

Mindfire said:


> Interesting ideas. Okay, so this race would have to have originated in a place where they were the unchallenged apex predators- no large animals to fight off or hunt and force them to develop conventional weapons. There would also be no trees or rocks nearby to provide materials for making spears, bows, or arrows. But there would be plenty of grasses to weave rough clothing and ropes. So they would have developed in a savannah area with some rivers, or perhaps a marsh or delta. Presuming they're omnivores and not vegetarians, their main source of meat would have been fish and small animals they caught in snares or traps. Early on in their development they discovered magic, which they started using to make weaves because that's the kind of technology they were familiar with. Now, if you want this to be a group-focused culture, then staying with the group has to offer more survival options than striking out alone. In an area with no natural predators, your best bet will probably be the elements. Perhaps regular bad weather that's easier to cope with as a group than as an individual.



You two boys are good, Scribble and Mindfire.  I should leave you alone to play more often!  Yes, you both hit the race dead on.  They are basically big desert/savannah cats that are omnivores with a STRONG preference for meat (though a massive interstellar population means that they are often pressed into consuming substitute protein).  They are predators who enslave what they consider prey races - though they usually don't eat things that talk and have hands.  Their technology is biotech based, from basic day-to-day to star ships, and their elite military caste wear genetically engineered armor that is in fact a shape-changing symbiotic organism keyed to the individual warrior and bonded for life.  

Their genetic code is, as I like to say, open to suggestion, so when they conquer other races with traits they find desirable such as superior speed or intelligence they will breed them in, which means the race does not appear much as they did originally.

Love you guys!  You are coming up with wonderful ideas!


----------



## Scribble

Mindfire said:


> Interesting ideas. Okay, so this race would have to have originated in a place where they were the unchallenged apex predators- no large animals to fight off or hunt and force them to develop conventional weapons. There would also be no trees or rocks nearby to provide materials for making spears, bows, or arrows. But there would be plenty of grasses to weave rough clothing and ropes. So they would have developed in a savannah area with some rivers, or perhaps a marsh or delta. Presuming they're omnivores and not vegetarians, their main source of meat would have been fish and small animals they caught in snares or traps. Early on in their development they discovered magic, which they started using to make weaves because that's the kind of technology they were familiar with. Now, if you want this to be a group-focused culture, then staying with the group has to offer more survival options than striking out alone. In an area with no natural predators, your best bet will probably be the elements. Perhaps regular bad weather that's easier to cope with as a group than as an individual.



This sounds very reasonable. I think there was mentioned a feline aspect to the race. Lions provide the best comparison, except perhaps in this race, they ended up more like hyenas with the female becoming dominant. The males would be smaller. Size is adaptive, and large males are costly in terms of food consumption. We have large males because there was competition and large males were selected for. Males who don't hog food resources would be selected for in this case.

I like this idea of them becoming seafaring as well as land-hunting. It gives a different aspect to using nets and lines. It also lends itself well to the idea I had proposed where they "grow" calcium carbonate shell structures. It would be so pretty to see a shell city by the sea, plus it has the Aphrodite allusion.


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## Scribble

Mindfire said:


> Something else that comes to mind. What made this society develop into a matriarchy? One possibility is that females are physically stronger than the males of this race, but that mirrors humans too much for what you seem to be aiming at, plus physical strength is a moot point survival-wise in a culture that's developed a place where it's largely irrelevant (no big animals to bring down or fight off, no heavy objects that need lifting). Their discovery of magic and complex traps so early in their culture's development would imply that they're very intelligent. Perhaps females of the species are naturally cleverer and more artistic? In this case, intelligence and artistic ability are also the culture's chief values. Intelligence and artistic ability would also be how an individual makes expresses their identity within the group and make their unique mark on the world. In order for this not to develop into a hierarchical structure, you have to have them value variety more than quantity or quality: not "who can make the most" or "who can make the best" but rather the idea that "everyone's is different, and these different pieces together make something better than the sum of its parts"- a sort of tapestry or quilt-like mindset that would also find its way into their government.
> 
> Now, how do females select mates? In humans, men usually select for beauty, which signals fertility, while women counter-select for physical strength or other resources that demonstrate ability to provide. In a female-dominated species where intelligence and artistic ability are chiefly valued, how does mate selection work? Do males pursue females? Do females pursue males? Or did they never develop the pursuit-response model and instead take some kind of third option? What does each sex select for?



It could be that males culturally became very good weavers, crafters, etc... It could be intelligence that was the selective feature for males, rather than size. If we think about lions, big tough male lions have one primary use: fighting off other male lions. If they developed technology, then it's triumph of the nerds. So, we have a society where males are technologists, and teachers, caring for the young, while females are more warlike - not necessarily larger, because their fighting style was not relying on might, but bright! So, brainliness would be the selective value. I can see a lot of sand-in-the-face nerds seeing this as a smart man's utopia 

So, males have artistic and technological peacock tails, while women wield that technology.

There would be no reason for sexual dimorphism, they would be equal.


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## Mindfire

Scribble said:


> This sounds very reasonable. I think there was mentioned a feline aspect to the race. Lions provide the best comparison, except perhaps in this race, they ended up more like hyenas with the female becoming dominant. The males would be smaller. Size is adaptive, and large males are costly in terms of food consumption. We have large males because there was competition and large males were selected for. Males who don't hog food resources would be selected for in this case.
> 
> I like this idea of them becoming seafaring as well as land-hunting. It gives a different aspect to using nets and lines. It also lends itself well to the idea I had proposed where they "grow" calcium carbonate shell structures. It would be so pretty to see a shell city by the sea, plus it has the Aphrodite allusion.



That's good thinking, plus it fits in nicely with what I said above. In humans, males select for fertility via beauty while females counter-select for the socially "dominant" or chiefly valued trait: strength/resources/ability to provide. In this alien culture, females would select for willingness to share (resources) and emotional openness, while males would counter-select for the "dominant" trait: creativity and intelligence. Since nobody selects for fertility, we'd have to assume that for whatever reason, fertility isn't a problem with their species. Perhaps both males and females have an infinite supply of reproductive cells, rather than just males as is the case in humans.

*EDIT:* You ninja'd me Scribble! Lol. I like your ideas. Perhaps we can blend our approaches to mate selection somehow? As an aside, with females being dominant, I'd see them being the innovators while employing males to do the more tedious, low-skill, or repetitive tasks. Incidentally this means they might also select for higher attention span and more patience in males.


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## A. E. Lowan

Mindfire said:


> Something else that comes to mind. What made this society develop into a matriarchy? One possibility is that females are physically stronger than the males of this race, but that mirrors humans too much for what you seem to be aiming at, plus physical strength is a moot point survival-wise in a culture that's developed a place where it's largely irrelevant (no big animals to bring down or fight off, no heavy objects that need lifting). Their discovery of magic and complex traps so early in their culture's development would imply that they're very intelligent. Perhaps females of the species are naturally cleverer and more artistic? In this case, intelligence and artistic ability are also the culture's chief values.
> 
> Now, how do females select mates? In humans, men usually select for beauty, which signals fertility, while women counter-select for physical strength or other resources that demonstrate ability to provide. In a female-dominated species where intelligence and artistic ability are chiefly valued, how does mate selection work? Do males pursue females? Do females pursue males? Or did they never develop the pursuit-response model and instead take some kind of third option? What does each sex select for?



Females ARE physically stronger than the males, nearly massing half again their size.  A good size female tops out at about 7 feet, whereas a male is much more delicate and gracile.  We are not, I repeat NOT, going for a "utopian" matriarchy with this.  Rather we're taking our human societal norms and twisting them every which way.  

So, basically, what happened was the original feline culture was fairly egalitarian, with a generally female dominated social structure rather like a lion pride, only the lions didn't get to eat first.  They advanced to the point of developing weapons of mass destruction, and blew themselves back to the stone age, rendering their world a desolate wasteland.  The population eventually bounced back, but fertile males were in short supply and became a hot commodity, leading to their basically being horded by the most powerful females and encouraging that those aggressive and powerful females would pass on those traits.

Enter the space prospectors, who recognized a world still rich in mineral resources with a ready-made slave population - that had, as I said above, a genetic code "open to suggestion."  Pretty soon, the two species were interbreeding, and the feline's genes won out, creating a new race of slaves who were highly intelligent, aggressive, and really liked their master's shiny ships.  They rebelled and headed out to the stars, eventually becoming first pirates, and then establishing a civilization based on conquest.

As for mates, females select same as we do, based on youth and beauty, with fertility being paramount.  A female must earn the right to breed (though she can own as many slaves as she can afford and with them as she pleases), and only citizens can get licenses to have legal children.  She can earn citizenship through military service, or by proving herself to be a valuable, contributing member of society - and be able to afford a husband, of course.  Then she has to contract with another woman, usually a friend or associate, to buy her son as a husband.  Are illegal children born?  All the time.  But it's a cultural no no.  A male is property and does not have a say in his wife.  He is not a citizen, and cannot own property or inherit.  No male legally born would approach a female, and one illegally born would be hoping for financial compensation for his limited time.


----------



## Scribble

Mindfire said:


> That's good thinking, plus it fits in nicely with what I said above:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In our society, males select for fertility via beauty while females counter-select for the socially "dominant" or chiefly valued trait: strength/resources/ability to provide. In this alien culture, females would select for willingness to share (resources) and emotional openness, while males would counter-select for the "dominant" trait: creativity and intelligence. Since nobody selects for fertility, we'd have to assume that for whatever reason, fertility isn't a problem with their species. Perhaps both males and females have an infinite supply of reproductive cells, rather than just males as is the case in humans.



+10 points for understanding evolution and stuff.

We could get into weird biology - why not, they are aliens. Female bears young from her body. If we move away from that, and they have fur, the femininity starts to become vague. Not saying it's not doable, just making that point.

I think the really interesting bit comes with the social interaction. There could also be the distant cultural memory of when males were dominant. There could be the equivalent of cave paintings of those savage times. I described what appears to be a utopia, but for males who are second class, there could be some rumblings. Maybe there are male liberation movements. 

I don't know if this where they want to go with this, but the desire for equality is something to be expected.


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## Mindfire

A. E. Lowan said:


> Females ARE physically stronger than the males, nearly massing half again their size.  A good size female tops out at about 7 feet, whereas a male is much more delicate and gracile.  We are not, I repeat NOT, going for a "utopian" matriarchy with this.  Rather we're taking our human societal norms and twisting them every which way.
> 
> So, basically, what happened was the original feline culture was fairly egalitarian, with a generally female dominated social structure rather like a lion pride, only the lions didn't get to eat first.  They advanced to the point of developing weapons of mass destruction, and blew themselves back to the stone age, rendering their world a desolate wasteland.  The population eventually bounced back, but fertile males were in short supply and became a hot commodity, leading to their basically being horded by the most powerful females and encouraging that those aggressive and powerful females would pass on those traits.
> 
> Enter the space prospectors, who recognized a world still rich in mineral resources with a ready-made slave population - that had, as I said above, a genetic code "open to suggestion."  Pretty soon, the two species were interbreeding, and the feline's genes won out, creating a new race of slaves who were highly intelligent, aggressive, and really liked their master's shiny ships.  They rebelled and headed out to the stars, eventually becoming first pirates, and then establishing a civilization based on conquest.
> 
> As for mates, females select same as we do, based on youth and beauty, with fertility being paramount.  A female must earn the right to breed (though she can own as many slaves as she can afford and with them as she pleases), and only citizens can get licenses to have legal children.  She can earn citizenship through military service, or by proving herself to be a valuable, contributing member of society - and be able to afford a husband, of course.  Then she has to contract with another woman, usually a friend or associate, to buy her son as a husband.  Are illegal children born?  All the time.  But it's a cultural no no.  A male is property and does not have a say in his wife.  He is not a citizen, and cannot own property or inherit.  No male legally born would approach a female, and one illegally born would be hoping for financial compensation for his limited time.



So basically, the culture Scribble and I are describing is what they were like _before_ the apocalypse?


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## A. E. Lowan

Mindfire said:


> So basically, the culture Scribble and I are describing is what they were like _before_ the apocalypse?



Yes, pretty much!   I'm loving reading what you two are coming up with.  You're not only intuiting our original ideas brilliantly, but you're taking them and running with them is wonderful new directions.  _This_ is why I like collaboration.


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## Feo Takahari

A few days late, but I found this on another forum, and it seems relevant:


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## A. E. Lowan

OMG... I love you so much right now, Feo.


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## Mindfire

Okay, that made me lol. Incidentally, all of those are pretty inefficient weapons. Except for the chakram ("throwing anus") those things are surprisingly effective. They're like frisbees of death.


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## Nameback

Man, so I know the Bechdel test is hardly the end-all, be-all of measuring the feminism of writing, but I was shocked recently to find that my book doesn't pass! 

I've already written 31,000 words, and yet I don't have a single scene with two women that doesn't include at some point talking about a male character! This, despite the fact that of my POV characters thus far, four are female and three are male, and I have an explicit goal in writing this book to explore some feminist themes (among other themes). 

Now, of course, I think the book is well represented with female characters who have agency and impact on the plot (including the protagonist), and it seems that part of the 'problem' here is that I have very few scenes that feature characters of only one gender. Interestingly, my book wouldn't pass an inverse-Bechdel test, either. I have only two scenes between male characters, and both times they're talking about female characters. 

Still, for something as simple and (often) reductive as the Bechdel test, it was really surprising for me to look at my own work and see that I didn't have any scenes that met the threshold.


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## saellys

The scenes you have with two women in conversation include subjects other than men, though, right? Because as long as they talk about something else at some point, you totally pass. There are loads of legit reasons for two women to talk about a man or men, but very few reasons for them to talk _exclusively_ about a man. 

The two most recent pieces of media I've consumed are the trailer for _The East_ and a few episodes of _Hannibal_. _The East_ passes Bechdel in the trailer, which made my day, even though the three female leads will probably have cause at some point to discuss male characters when in conversation with each other. And _Hannibal_ passes in the third episode, even though Abigail and Alanna discuss Abigail's dad in the same conversation. Point is, passing Bechdel does not require the complete avoidance of discussing any man, ever; it just requires that female characters have something else to talk about sometimes.


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## Nameback

saellys said:


> The scenes you have with two women in conversation include subjects other than men, though, right? Because as long as they talk about something else at some point, you totally pass. There are loads of legit reasons for two women to talk about a man or men, but very few reasons for them to talk _exclusively_ about a man.



Well, so far I only have one scene with dialogue that consists of only female characters, and they're mostly talking about a dude. I have plenty of scenes with a mixed group of characters where women talk about all sorts of stuff and move the plot forward, but I don't have any scene with two or more women who have a conversation that doesn't revolve around a man, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, I have four scenes with only male characters--and I went back and realized that two of these do actually qualify as inverse-Bechdel, meaning that they don't mention women. I mean, it's a little tough, because I'm deliberately setting the story mainly in a patriarchal culture so that the protagonist can grow to rebel against it, but the result is that most of the characters in positions of power are men, so if a female character is interacting with a non-POV character important to the plot, it's usually a dude. 

Like, all the mages in the main city are men, because women are barred from learning or practicing magic, because the men fear it (women have an inherent advantage as mages; since mages mainly gain power by extracting potential from living things [by destroying them ritualistically], female mages can purposefully get pregnant, and magically abort their fetuses to absorb the potential within them).


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## Feo Takahari

Nameback said:


> (women have an inherent advantage as mages; since mages mainly gain power by extracting potential from living things [by destroying them ritualistically], female mages can purposefully get pregnant, and magically abort their fetuses to absorb the potential within them).



Congratulations. You've just beaten out the _Wess'har_ series for second-most disturbing thing ever done with a fetus. (Shintaro Kago still wins first place.)


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## Nameback

Feo Takahari said:


> Congratulations. You've just beaten out the _Wess'har_ series for second-most disturbing thing ever done with a fetus. (Shintaro Kago still wins first place.)



Thanks! I was pretty happy with it. 

Obviously it's a metaphor for the fear that men have in general of women having control of their reproduction.


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## Mindfire

Nameback said:


> Thanks! I was pretty happy with it.
> 
> Obviously it's a metaphor for the fear that men have in general of women having control of their reproduction.



If your intent is to support pro-choice, I think that story element might be counter-productive. It doesn't so much make me question my views on abortion as it makes me think how sick, depraved, and downright evil these women would have to be to intentionally get pregnant and then kill their babies purely for personal gain. At least in the real world people can argue abortion for health reasons or what have you. But here, they're explicitly doing it just to increase their own magical power. That's just... evil.


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## Jessquoi

Mindfire said:


> If your intent is to support pro-choice, I think that story element might be counter-productive. It doesn't so much make me question my views on abortion as it makes me think how sick, depraved, and downright evil these women would have to be to intentionally get pregnant and then kill their babies purely for personal gain. At least in the real world people can argue abortion for health reasons or what have you. But here, they're explicitly doing it just to increase their own magical power. That's just... evil.




My guess is that that is the point.


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## Steerpike

Mindfire said:


> If your intent is to support pro-choice, I think that story element might be counter-productive. It doesn't so much make me question my views on abortion as it makes me think how sick, depraved, and downright evil these women would have to be to intentionally get pregnant and then kill their babies purely for personal gain. At least in the real world people can argue abortion for health reasons or what have you. But here, they're explicitly doing it just to increase their own magical power. That's just... evil.



That's going to be the read on it from people with a certain viewpoint, but that's no reason not to include it, in my view. For someone who is pro-life it is going to cast the character in a certain way, and the author can either work with that or build up the character in a way that counters it. For someone who is pro-choice anyway, the effect is going to be a lot more mild, if it exists at all, and the author will have an easier time building up the character to counter the perception. 

Either way, I'd run with it and see how it works. I don't find it works so well as a metaphor, however, because I think the underlying assumption that men generally fear a woman being in control of reproduction is a flawed assumption. Probably true in a minority of cases, but not as a general rule, so if you try to extend the metaphor to make a generalized point (sort of a universal truth) I think it will fall on its face.


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## saellys

Nameback said:


> Well, so far I only have one scene with dialogue that consists of only female characters, and they're mostly talking about a dude. I have plenty of scenes with a mixed group of characters where women talk about all sorts of stuff and move the plot forward, but I don't have any scene with two or more women who have a conversation that doesn't revolve around a man, unfortunately.
> 
> Meanwhile, I have four scenes with only male characters--and I went back and realized that two of these do actually qualify as inverse-Bechdel, meaning that they don't mention women. I mean, it's a little tough, because I'm deliberately setting the story mainly in a patriarchal culture so that the protagonist can grow to rebel against it, but the result is that most of the characters in positions of power are men, so if a female character is interacting with a non-POV character important to the plot, it's usually a dude.
> 
> Like, all the mages in the main city are men, because women are barred from learning or practicing magic, because the men fear it (women have an inherent advantage as mages; since mages mainly gain power by extracting potential from living things [by destroying them ritualistically], female mages can purposefully get pregnant, and magically abort their fetuses to absorb the potential within them).



I laugh a little every time I see a mention of inverse or reverse Bechdel, because that is literally every story (with two male characters) _ever_. Since men are overwhelmingly the main protagonists of the stories we consume, and generally have things to think/talk about other than women, it is staggeringly easy to pass. The Bechdel test is significantly more difficult because we have a tendency to make female characters ancillary to their male counterparts. 

I'm staunchly pro-choice, but I think that mage mechanic metaphor might backfire on you unless you make it really clear that this is a rule made by male mages based on no actual incidences of female mages aborting their fetuses for power. _Then_ it would more or less mirror the logic of "We can't let kids have the HPV vaccine because ~promiscuity~!"


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## A. E. Lowan

Nameback said:


> Like, all the mages in the main city are men, because women are barred from learning or practicing magic, because the men fear it (women have an inherent advantage as mages; since mages mainly gain power by extracting potential from living things [by destroying them ritualistically], female mages can purposefully get pregnant, and magically abort their fetuses to absorb the potential within them).



I'm going to take a little poke at your meta-physics, now, because that's just the kind of crazy I am...

I understand you're basing your magical system on what is essentially death magic - am I reading that right?  So, as co-mingled as life-forces would be between a pregnant woman and her fetus (shared blood streams, air supplies, etc.), wouldn't that actually make practicing death magic within her own body extremely difficult, if not lethal?

What if what makes women as mages so scary to their male counterparts is not their potential for creating death from within their own bodies, but the power of life itself?  That would give a female mage powers over both life AND death, making her potentially twice as powerful as a male mage.


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## Feo Takahari

saellys said:


> I laugh a little every time I see a mention of inverse or reverse Bechdel, because that is literally every story (with two male characters) _ever_. Since men are overwhelmingly the main protagonists of the stories we consume, and generally have things to think/talk about other than women, it is staggeringly easy to pass. The Bechdel test is significantly more difficult because we have a tendency to make female characters ancillary to their male counterparts.



Your parentheses weaken the statement quite a bit. Quite a few of my short stories never have more than two characters in the same conversation. In those cases where the viewpoint character is female, the men only speak to her, and the inverse Bechdel test is not passed.


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## Zero Angel

Here I thought after 9872389 threads and pages of discussion we've moved on from Bechdel and found it to be a somewhat flawed test in general. To me, the Bechdel Test is no more valid than the Prologue Test (books are only worth reading if there is a prologue) or Inverse-Prologue Test (books are only worth reading if there isn't a prologue). 

Maybe we haven't had almost 10 billion threads and pages of discussion, but we at least had two Bechdel-Test threads.


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## saellys

Feo Takahari said:


> Your parentheses weaken the statement quite a bit. Quite a few of my short stories never have more than two characters in the same conversation. In those cases where the viewpoint character is female, the men only speak to her, and the inverse Bechdel test is not passed.



I don't see how the parenthetical weakens my statement. Passing Bechdel requires two female characters; passing reverse-Bechdel requires two male characters. I was being facetious and ironic with that whole "literally" thing, but my point was that in any story in which two male characters speak to each other, the likelihood of passing reverse-Bechdel is far, far higher than the likelihood of two female characters passing Bechdel. 



Zero Angel said:


> Here I thought after 9872389 threads and pages of discussion we've moved on from Bechdel and found it to be a somewhat flawed test in general. To me, the Bechdel Test is no more valid than the Prologue Test (books are only worth reading if there is a prologue) or Inverse-Prologue Test (books are only worth reading if there isn't a prologue).
> 
> Maybe we haven't had almost 10 billion threads and pages of discussion, but we at least had two Bechdel-Test threads.



No one is discussing whether Bechdel is somewhat flawed or not anymore, except, apparently, you. To the people talking about it right now (again, except you), it's valid. You've already established you don't consider it valid, so why jump back in to remind people that something they consider valid isn't as far as you're concerned? We were discussing how it pertains to Nameback's work, not yours.

Honest question: why bother talking about something you clearly hate talking about so much? Why is it so important to shut that discussion down just because we've already had threads about the Bechdel test?


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## Devor

saellys said:


> Honest question: why bother talking about something you clearly hate talking about so much? Why is it so important to shut that discussion down just because we've already had threads about the Bechdel test?



I can't speak for Zero, but I somewhat understand the negative reaction.

There's something about Bechdel which, I think, targets the formula of a certain kind of book.  That is, a shorter novel, with not too many characters, has a male protagonist fighting a similar-but-opposite male antagonist, and along the way there's a light love triangle which pits two women as minor antagonists to each other in the subplot, and at some point they have to talk about it for the triangle to be satisfying.

I get that it's an old and tired formula, but it's a mainstay.  If you strip away the fantasy, we could find a number of high school dramas which fail the inverse Bechdel.  The formula is ubiquitous.  To say, "If you fail Bechdel, it somehow implies" - well, I'm not sure what it's supposed to imply.  But if they both like the same guy, then wouldn't that probably be the part of their conversation which is relevant to the story?

To me, Bechdel looks more like a trap than a test, so I don't see much point in it, except to score points making something harmless look like something sinister.


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## Steerpike

It can be a good threshold question. If you're writing a story about two soldiers in a trench in WWI, you're going to fail the Bechdel test, but so what? On the other hand, if you're trying to write a story with a cast of well-developed male and female characters, and you realize you failed the Bechdel Test, it's a good indicator that you need to go back and work on the female characters.


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## Zero Angel

saellys said:


> No one is discussing whether Bechdel is somewhat flawed or not anymore, except, apparently, you. To the people talking about it right now (again, except you), it's valid. You've already established you don't consider it valid, so why jump back in to remind people that something they consider valid isn't as far as you're concerned? We were discussing how it pertains to Nameback's work, not yours.
> 
> Honest question: why bother talking about something you clearly hate talking about so much? Why is it so important to shut that discussion down just because we've already had threads about the Bechdel test?



I never said I hated it. I find it irrelevant. I thought it was a group consensus (including you) that came to the conclusion that passing or not passing the Bechdel Test does not tell us anything beyond that two female characters don't get together and talk about something that's not a male. Apparently, I am misremembering. 

I brought up the (again, I thought) group consensus because Nameback was commenting on this as though it was a flaw in their work.


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## saellys

Yes, we established exactly what the Bechdel test demonstrates in a given work. Not that all the discussion about that was necessary or anything, since the conclusion we reached is exactly what the test states. We did not, however, reach a common consensus about what the Bechdel test is useful for showing us about our own work if we choose to look deeper, or whether it's valid for a writer to want to pass it on purpose. Nameback wants to pass to complement other, broader themes in their work. That's their prerogative because it's a priority to them; the fact that they view it as a flaw in their work has nothing to do with the fact that you find it irrelevant in your own.


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## Devor

Steerpike said:


> It can be a good threshold question. If you're writing a story about two soldiers in a trench in WWI, you're going to fail the Bechdel test, but so what? On the other hand, if you're trying to write a story with a cast of well-developed male and female characters, and you realize you failed the Bechdel Test, it's a good indicator that you need to go back and work on the female characters.



When it comes with all the qualifiers, and isn't used just to make points in an argument, I can kind of see that (not to imply that it was brought up for points now - it's not).  If you have a larger cast, or any kind of complexity to your plot, and especially if you have female POVs, then maybe it would be a red flag to fail Bechdel.

But I react negatively to all of these tests.  The Mary Sue, the Fantasy Cliches and so on.  Nevermind that there's something pretentious about putting down a large number of story types, it just seems silly to take an isolated trait out of context and pretend it means much of anything.

I mean, I passed Bechdel in the first chapter.  To me, that doesn't say much of anything about what I'm writing.


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## Zero Angel

Devor said:


> I mean, I passed Bechdel in the first chapter.  To me, that doesn't say much of anything about what I'm writing.



Bechdel is one of those tests that passing it doesn't mean anything to those that find it laudable. It's failing it that matters...unless it's an exception where failing it is alright. 

Anyway, I just watched "Brave". I was expecting more. I didn't find the character all that brave in fact and only reactionary when it came to danger. I mean, it's still nice that it wasn't a romance, which is a HUGE step forward  The fact that this is touted as being so different is very worrying. Everything is so messed up in media. "Brave" is more conservative than liberal, and yet since there's hardly anything out there it's this huge liberal movie.

It was alright and I don't think Merida is a bad role-model by any stretch, but it would have been nice to see a little bit more from her. 



Spoiler: Brave



The whole needle-and-thread being more useful than a bow thing was quite bothersome and also that the mom ended up beating the bad-bear. All she had to do was shoot the thing in the eye, which she's clearly capable of from everything else they show of her in the movie.



I'm OK with romance being present, and I've even heard it said that there NEEDS to be romantic elements in EVERY work or that it at least makes every work better (I disagree, but I've heard it), but why is it always the FOCUS of these movies? Most of the time in movies like this where the girl doesn't want romance, she ends up finding out that she secretly does. It's insane and so frustrating!

I really can't stand it. I apologize if this stuff was mentioned before about "Brave", I probably skipped it since I hadn't seen it. If a guy wants to be a hermit, there may be some subtle hints of homosexuality if you read between the lines, but it's just as likely that it's just a choice they made to be a hermit, but if a woman doesn't want to marry it seems like it HAS to be addressed why she didn't marry. If you're a female character you're either pro-romance or anti-romance (and I'm using romance to encompass relationships and the like, not just wining and dining, etc), but you have to have a stance. (And if you're anti-romance then you'll usually be forced to become pro-romance). Guys don't have to have stances. 

By the way, I don't think "Brave" passes the Bechdel Test unless you count some of her conversations with the bear.


----------



## Mindfire

I think you have to view Brave through the lens of "Mom-Daughter bonding film". It's pretty much exactly like Father-Son bonding films (e.g. A Goofy Movie) except female. They have similar structure if you think about it.


----------



## Nameback

Mindfire said:


> If your intent is to support pro-choice, I think that story element might be counter-productive. It doesn't so much make me question my views on abortion as it makes me think how sick, depraved, and downright evil these women would have to be to intentionally get pregnant and then kill their babies purely for personal gain. At least in the real world people can argue abortion for health reasons or what have you. But here, they're explicitly doing it just to increase their own magical power. That's just... evil.



In your opinion! Which, of course, is one of a broad variety of opinions I hope to provoke by writing this into my story. No matter what, I'm sure readers will find it engaging in the sense that it will arouse strong emotion--and to my mind, that's always a good thing for a book to do.

*Removed by Moderator.*


----------



## Nameback

Steerpike said:


> Either way, I'd run with it and see how it works. I don't find it works so well as a metaphor, however, because I think the underlying assumption that men generally fear a woman being in control of reproduction is a flawed assumption. Probably true in a minority of cases, but not as a general rule, so if you try to extend the metaphor to make a generalized point (sort of a universal truth) I think it will fall on its face.



Well, maybe "fear" is the wrong word, but there's obviously been a nearly-universal effort to curtail and control female sexuality in male-dominated cultures. I actually can't even think of a counter-example. 

It makes sense, of course--men are at risk of raising children who are not their own, and women are not. So men naturally fear cuckolding far more than women do. Men also happened to seize most positions of political and religious authority throughout history, and so leveraged those positions to control female sexuality to ensure as many consequences as possible for female promiscuity and infidelity, including insults, shunning, damnation, forced pregnancy, rape, and death. 

Now, you're right in the sense that while almost every culture ever documented has created restrictions and rules around female sexuality (and male sexuality too, though generally far less restrictively), that does not mean that every individual man shares those feelings. For the record, I'm a man, and obviously I don't if I'm writing about how misguided they are. So you're right that I shouldn't paint all _men_ with that brush, but I think it's fair to paint all cultures with that brush.


----------



## Nameback

saellys said:


> Nameback wants to pass to complement other, broader themes in their work. That's their prerogative because it's a priority to them; the fact that they view it as a flaw in their work has nothing to do with the fact that you find it irrelevant in your own.



Thank you--succinctly and accurately put.

I'm not saying everyone should pass it, or that stories are sexist if they don't. I'm just saying I want to pass it, because that would be consistent with my goals for the story over-all. 

Also, for the record, I found a place in my book that was a male/female conversation that had no intrinsic reason to be, and changed it to female/female and now have a Bechdel-passing scene. It illustrated to me how, even though there was no essential gender component to the character I ended up changing, I defaulted to "male." While I've made an effort to make the POV cast inclusive, I may be unconsciously defaulting to male characters for the supporting cast.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Zero Angel said:


> I don't want to get into this debate either, but your logic is a bit off. Your premises are not guaranteed to be true and one does not follow from another either. My day job is a mathematician so again, I'm not even going to start to talk about what you've brought up in content, but in terms of logic, they are faulty arguments. Again, you're welcome to feel and think about those things whatever you like, but the conclusions you have arrived at do not follow from the beginnings of your argument.
> 
> In fact, there are even some contradictions as well on second review.



Could you please clarify what you mean? I argued in a PM that he was making an oversight, but I don't see any contradictions.


----------



## Nameback

In general, I want to mess with my readers' preconceived notions. I have very weird political and moral beliefs. I basically disagree with everyone on everything--even when I agree on policy with someone, there's about a 2% chance that I agree with their reasoning for it. And I've yet to find a single person who agrees with my vision of an ideal world. 

Edit: just as a quick example from the news lately, I am pro-NSA spying. This is, in itself, not the majority opinion. On top of that, however, I am pro-leak. So while I approve of the NSA spying on people, I _also_ approve of Snowden leaking the nature of that spying to the public. I won't go into why, because it's a long argument and irrelevant to the discussion. The point is, I've yet to find anyone who agrees with me on both those points at the same time.

Therefore, I have the outsider's perspective required to challenge people's beliefs in ways that they are less likely to have heard before. I have no intention of trying to convert people to my way of thinking; besides being impractical, it makes for a boring book. However, I love reading a book that makes me step back and realize that I have failed to ask important questions about my own beliefs. That I have made assumptions that I didn't even realize were assumptions, but took as natural facts. 

For the record, I find that most pro-choice people also share, albeit to a lesser extent, the moralizing of intentions behind an abortion. Even most pro-choice people would find the notion of purposefully getting pregnant in order to abort abhorrent--especially if it was for some kind of material gain. I want to make them ask themselves: "Why do I find this abhorrent?" Don't just find it abhorrent and stop there. I want people to confront their feeling of disgust and interrogate it, come to understand it. Whether they cast it off or not is irrelevant to me.

So, while I don't care about making people become pro-choice, I do hope that, wherever they are on the spectrum of belief on the issue, they come away from my book having more strenuously examined their beliefs.


----------



## Nameback

I want to do this as often as possible in my book, by the way: present something initially shocking or abhorrent, and then make the reader wrestle with it. Maybe they see a character they really like doing it. Maybe it ends up having a positive consequence for the world at large. And, conversely, I want to show them things that they will initially find satisfying or just, and then make them wrestle with that by showing its negative consequences, or having a villain exhibit that kind of moral action. 

Obviously GRRM does this a lot--taking the traditional heroic values like honor and trust and love and showing us how people--especially the regular people--keep suffering as a result of these intransigent, unpragmatic beliefs. But I'd like to be less bleak about it, and challenge philosophical ideals rather than narrative ones. I think GRRM's interrogation of things like honor is one of the best parts of ASOIAF, and a big part of why people love it, so I don't think the audience will be too distressed when I do something similar.


----------



## Devor

I want to take a second to remind everyone that modern Politics are banned, especially political arguments on extremely controversial subjects, except as strictly related to the context of a story.

You may read our policy here.

http://mythicscribes.com/forums/news-announcements/3634-no-more-politics.html


----------



## Chilari

Nameback said:


> Thank you--succinctly and accurately put.
> 
> I'm not saying everyone should pass it, or that stories are sexist if they don't. I'm just saying I want to pass it, because that would be consistent with my goals for the story over-all.
> 
> Also, for the record, I found a place in my book that was a male/female conversation that had no intrinsic reason to be, and changed it to female/female and now have a Bechdel-passing scene. It illustrated to me how, *even though there was no essential gender component to the character I ended up changing, I defaulted to "male."* While I've made an effort to make the POV cast inclusive, I may be unconsciously defaulting to male characters for the supporting cast.



(My emphasis)
I think this is an important point - when we think of characters, or even other people unseen, it is very easy to default to male. I've noticed I do when another driver does something stupid or dangerous on the road in my sight - When relaying the event I'd say "he cut me up" or "he pulled out in front of me" unless I'm refering to a car type (eg "A BMW overtook me in a no-overtaking area"). I assume other drivers are male unless I see that they are female. I caught myself defaulting to male for the antagonist of the story I'm planning, even though I'd not made a decision at the time (and have now - she's female).

I think this is defaulting to male thing is self-perpetuating: we default to male and write largely male casts. Thus the media we read has a lot of default male characters including protagonists, antagonists, side characters, mooks and monsters (ever noticed how most of the vampires in Buffy are male? Except Darla, Drucilla, Vamp Willow and a couple of others, all the vampires are male). Thus the default male mentality anchors itself more deeply in our minds.

That's part of why I think it is important to be deliberate in including women in all sorts of different roles within a story, because otherwise it's all to easy to default to male.


----------



## Zero Angel

Feo Takahari said:


> Could you please clarify what you mean? I argued in a PM that he was making an oversight, but I don't see any contradictions.



It's all gone now so I don't think I can remember them all.



Devor said:


> I want to take a second to remind everyone that modern Politics are banned, especially political arguments on extremely controversial subjects, except as strictly related to the context of a story.
> 
> You may read our policy here.
> 
> http://mythicscribes.com/forums/news-announcements/3634-no-more-politics.html



Can you please delete the rest of that post of mine you halfway cut then even though I didn't engage in any politicking and deliberately avoided it? It looks a little absurd with just a bit of a quote from Nameback and nothing from me.


----------



## Devor

Zero Angel said:


> Can you please delete the rest of that post of mine you halfway cut then even though I didn't engage in any politicking and deliberately avoided it? It looks a little absurd with just a bit of a quote from Nameback and nothing from me.



I'm sorry about that - I only meant to delete a segment from the Quote, and not anything from you, but I did it very rushed and am only seeing now that I made a mistake.  The post is deleted.


----------



## saellys

Nameback said:


> It makes sense, of course--men are at risk of raising children who are not their own, and women are not.



Unless they're Catelyn Stark.


----------



## Penpilot

Chilari said:


> (My emphasis)
> I think this is defaulting to male thing is self-perpetuating: we default to male and write largely male casts. Thus the media we read has a lot of default male characters including protagonists, antagonists, side characters, mooks and monsters (ever noticed how most of the vampires in Buffy are male? Except Darla, Drucilla, Vamp Willow and a couple of others, all the vampires are male). Thus the default male mentality anchors itself more deeply in our minds.



This brings up the question, "Can there ever be a 50/50 split between defaults?" IMHO it's more important female characters get fair representation as major characters than background characters. In TV and movies there are other factors that may come into play for minor characters other than fair representation. Maybe they couldn't find enough female extras that day of filming. Maybe they couldn't find a female actor for that day of filming that could do the physical feats required of that scene. Also if you think about it, there's a double standard where an audience won't flinch if a male character gets beat on, but if scenes contain a female getting beat on, especially if it's a guy doing the beating, there are going to be people who get uncomfortable because of the violence against women subject matter.

To me defaults of male or female are neither bad or good, they just are. They're a symptom of a patriarchal past, and will dissipate when society deals with root causes. And to me, giving this too much attention takes away from where focus should be.


----------



## Chilari

Where should the focus be? And sure;y it's only by giving it this focus now that there will ever come a point in the future where we won't need to give it any focus at all, because it will just be by default fairly equal.


----------



## saellys

Penpilot said:


> To me defaults of male or female are neither bad or good, they just are. They're a symptom of a patriarchal past, and will dissipate when society deals with root causes. And to me, giving this too much attention takes away from where focus should be.



I'm having a hard time processing this statement. What, in your opinion, are the root causes of unequal treatment of men and women in media, and how will society ever get around to dealing with them if we don't place attention on the top-level problem? 

In my experience, the deeper we go into the "root causes," the more abstract and easily manipulated the terms and statements become. I can go up to anyone and say, "Treat all people the same, 'kay?" and that person will inevitably say, "Okay, sure, that's what I do all the time." But if I'm critiquing the work that person has put out into the world, a top-level, seemingly superficial area, and I say, "You have a novel with eight major male characters and two females. The only time your two female characters talk to each other is when they're discussing one of the male characters, and that suggests to me that they're not truly fleshed out as characters to the extent that the men are. You should give them their own back story and goals that aren't tied to your male characters, which would also lead to a more interesting conversation where their agendas overlap or conflict. Also, keep an eye on this in the future to make sure you don't have imbalances like this by default--it's really easy to slip into the habit of underdeveloping female characters," that's specific advice that person can actually use, AND it has the potential to make them think about these issues later on, and maybe even do some honest self-examination of how they relate to other people of any gender, and whether that impacts their writing. 

Point is, not only do I believe this is a problem that _can_ be fixed from the top down, I'm convinced that top-down thinking will be a vital part of the solution.


----------



## Devor

saellys said:


> Point is, not only do I believe this is a problem that _can_ be fixed from the top down, I'm convinced that top-down thinking will be a vital part of the solution.



Yeah.  Root causes tend to be irrelevant when addressing something that manifests as a bad habit such as "defaulting to male."  You only fix a bad habit by focusing on it until it goes away.  Otherwise the habit persists long after the cause.

That is, if someone is defaulting to male, it doesn't need to mean anything about them except that they have a bad habit.  But that person will only fix it by naming it and thinking about it for a while.  The cause could be anything.


----------



## Chilari

Someone I follow on twitter just tweeted this:


> You don't get equality by waiting until the other side wakes up and gets a clue



She was talking about transphobia, but it applies here too. A passive approach won't yield results, but a proactive one will - even if you do have to step on a few toes along the way.

Link to the tweet.


----------



## Penpilot

Chilari said:


> Where should the focus be? And sure;y it's only by giving it this focus now that there will ever come a point in the future where we won't need to give it any focus at all, because it will just be by default fairly equal.



I stated the focus in my post. Focus on making sure when you look at story telling as a whole that there is equal female representation for main cast/main protagonists. To me focusing on background characters is noise. It dilutes the message. 




saellys said:


> I'm having a hard time processing this statement. What, in your opinion, are the root causes of unequal treatment of men and women in media, and how will society ever get around to dealing with them if we don't place attention on the top-level problem?



That's what I've been saying focus on the big problems instead of niggling at the small stuff. My response was to Chilari pointing out that most of the vampires in Buffy were male if you count all the background vamps. Why even worry about the faceless cannon fodder? Worry about the main cast. If we look at Buffy what are the significant vampires. On the male side it's Spike, Angel and The Master, and on the female side you got Drucilla and Darla. This is a 60/40 split. But if you look at significant female cast vs male cast, I'd say it's pretty even if not slanted toward the female side. 

Again, I'm saying worry about equal representation in the big roles, not the small ones. 



Devor said:


> Yeah.  Root causes tend to be irrelevant when addressing something that manifests as a bad habit such as "defaulting to male."  You only fix a bad habit by focusing on it until it goes away.  Otherwise the habit persists long after the cause.
> 
> That is, if someone is defaulting to male, it doesn't need to mean anything about them except that they have a bad habit.  But that person will only fix it by naming it and thinking about it for a while.  The cause could be anything.



To me, defaulting to male is a symptom of not seeing enough females in significant and diverse roles, in reality and in fiction. If all a writer ever sees is a male in a role such as... say...a cop, then that's going to be their default. Deal with the latter and the former will correct itself. Deal with the symptom and the cause remains and the symptom will manifest again.


----------



## Devor

Penpilot said:


> To me, defaulting to male is a symptom of not seeing enough females in significant and diverse roles, in reality and in fiction. If all a writer ever sees is a male in a role such as... say...a cop, then that's going to be their default. Deal with the latter and the former will correct itself. Deal with the symptom and the cause remains and the symptom will manifest again.



If you're defaulting to male, the solution is for you to consciously stop defaulting and take ten seconds to think about it.  There's no other way.  If you start reading stories about diverse characters, maybe the same thing is going to happen - eventually you might notice, and you'll decide to form a habit of taking ten seconds to think about it.  But it's not just going to disappear.

What's wrong with bringing the habit to the forefront through dialogue?




Chilari said:


> "You don't get equality by waiting until the other side wakes up and gets a clue"
> 
> .....A passive approach won't yield results, but a proactive one will - even if you do have to step on a few toes along the way.



It's entirely possible to take an proactive approach without "taking sides" or trying to "step on a few toes."  I think that kind of attitude can hold someone back.


----------



## Penpilot

Devor said:


> If you're defaulting to male, the solution is for you to consciously stop defaulting and take ten seconds to think about it.  There's no other way.  If you start reading stories about diverse characters, maybe the same thing is going to happen - eventually you might notice, and you'll decide to form a habit of taking ten seconds to think about it.  But it's not just going to disappear.
> 
> What's wrong with bringing the habit to the forefront through dialogue?



This is assuming the writer is consciously aware that they're defaulting. And if they're already aware, then they're probably giving it thought already, whether they care to change or not. It's not about short term here. It's about the long run. Changing general attitudes takes time, and IMHO the best way to reach people is by example, not telling people what they should or should not do.

I never said it was wrong to dialogue about it. I said to not vilify it. It's neither good or bad. It just is. Everyone defaults, and not just in determining the sex of a character. Some default to male, others to female. Some default to comedy fiction, others to drama.

The problem is when sex is concerned more default to male right now. The ideal would be 50% of the people default to male and the other 50% default to female. That, to me, would be a sign that society feels that males and females have the equal right to be ignored, mistreated, misrepresented, and made fun of without any sexual bias.


----------



## Chilari

I don't think ignoring the background characters is going to help. Consider the main characters as a priority, but if you're still defaulting to male for background characters, there is still a problem. How much time would it take, when we're writing novels (so there's no issue with casting etc, though I don't honestly think there are any more male extras than female - they seem to be more balanced in crowd scenes and so on so why not vampires too?) there's no reason not to stop for five seconds and think "does this pub landlord have to be male?" or "does this shopkeeper have to be male?" or even, "does this city guard have to be male?" and if the answer is no, consider changing it.

I don't see that dismissing it because it's less important than main characters is useful.


----------



## Penpilot

Chilari said:


> I don't see that dismissing it because it's less important than main characters is useful.



I'll repeat myself. It's about signal to noise ratio. Do you expect to bust everyones chops if they don't balance their background characters? Should there be some one whose job it is to count how many female and male background characters there are in every book and every tv show and every film? And if it's not balanced enough, shame on them? Where does it end? Do we start counting guys and gals in the Where's Waldo pictures? There's a point where it gets to be too much. 

If you nitpick at every old thing, people will stop listening and the real important stuff gets lost in the noise. 

Also when you set your parameters to only include vampires, to me that's a bit of a strawman. What if I set the parameters to witches in Buffy. If memory serves they're all female. Is that fair or equal? Why not a warlock or two? If I set my parameters right I can make the category support any argument I come up with.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Penpilot said:


> I'll repeat myself. It's about signal to noise ratio. Do you expect to bust everyones chops if they don't balance their background characters? Should there be some one whose job it is to count how many female and male background characters there are in every book and every tv show and every film? And if it's not balanced enough, shame on them? Where does it end? Do we start counting guys and gals in the Where's Waldo pictures? There's a point where it gets to be too much.
> 
> If you nitpick at every old thing, people will stop listening and the real important stuff gets lost in the noise.
> 
> Also when you set your parameters to only include vampires, to me that's a bit of a strawman. What if I set the parameters to witches in Buffy. If memory serves they're all female. Is that fair or equal? Why not a warlock or two? If I set my parameters right I can make the category support any argument I come up with.



I don't know about Saellys, but Chilari doesn't seem to be advocating _criticizing_ anyone, just observing patterns. I think you're attempting to counter arguments she's not actually making.

(My own thoughts, if anyone cares: if you're going to be talking to or about a writer, look at that writer on an individual level, and observe everything they do. If you're going to be talking about a genre, look at everything that genre does. That includes minor characters as well as major characters. However, it's a judgment call which observations, if any, lead to criticism.)


----------



## Chilari

I was using vampires in Buffy as an example - it's something I've noticed recently because I've been watching the series on Netflix. The vast majority of demons are also male - Anya is one exception and one episode had a female demon cult, but the rest are all male. As for witches, that's part of the same problem - for witches, the default is female (though there is one male witch, Michael, in season 3 who appears in one episode) and here because we're talking about witches, yes, it is the tendency to default to female on those and that shouldn't be the case either.

When you say "we can ignore this because it's not as important as something else", you're failing to realise that they're all symptoms of the same thing. Yes, more attention should be given to main characters, but that doesn't mean no attention should be given to others. I'm not saying there needs to be some group policing this, I'm saying we need to discuss it to raise awareness that it is happening and to encourage creators to think about it and if possible for the context, change a few characters from male to female just so it doesn't look like their world is populated almost entirely by men. Half the population of the world are women, and unless you're setting your story in China or somewhere else where a one child policy and the assumption that men are superior is in place, or in a military or naval context prior to women being accepted into armed forces, then half the background characters should be female too.

But if the only people your half-female main cast ever interact with while they're on their journey or quest are men men men, it creates an impression that this world is only made up of men. The default to male mentality is reinforced.


----------



## Devor

I happen to think it's better to talk about things other than male/female protagonists.  I think if you really want to make progress, it's best to take the perspective of:

How can a male author write well by women while still writing the story he wants to write.

*Don't default to male* is a perfect talking point if you approach the situation from that perspective.  So is *give women agency*.  So is *lighten up on the sex*.  So is *give women an arc that isn't about being a woman*.

To me, those are exactly the kinds of things people should be saying.  They're exactly the kinds of things which - once the antagonism goes away - male authors will listen to.

But write more about female protagonists?  That's where you start telling people what kind of stories to write.  I could agree with the sentiment loosely, but if I don't feel that writer's passion about the idea of writing from a female POV, then I have no take away to do anything better and nothing has been fixed.  And anyways, sometimes you get inspiration from the minor characters.  A minor female character who's adviser to the king in one book drops the idea of female advisers into the cultural mindset, and might lead to a book about one by somebody else.  And once I've written just a few pages about one, I might really get that passion to explore the character further.

But in general, the rule for persuasion is:

_If you want people to help, don't ask them to care too much, think too hard or do a whole lot._

I think that leads to, again, a dialogue which focuses on the secondary characters.  I think that's where dialogue can get the most progress.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

I know I'm totally necro'ing this monster of a thread, but I think this blog calls for it...

What Boys Hear | Adrienne Becker


----------



## Zero Angel

A. E. Lowan said:


> I know I'm totally necro'ing this monster of a thread, but I think this blog calls for it...
> 
> What Boys Hear | Adrienne Becker



It's aliiiive, it's alliiiiive.

But seriously, girls are actually complex and boys need to see evidence of this? Pshaw.

But no, seriously seriously, I'd say boys/guys/non-females need to see evidence of this wayyyy more than girls do. People can say that girls, women and females need to get out there and take charge and if there were more strong people in real life there'd be more strong people in fiction all they want, but the truth of the matter is that when girls at all stand up for themselves or are a little active in not being harassed, they usually get threatened with violence, murder and sexual violence. Who are the people threatening them? Usually not women. 

On an aside, I don't know if it actually is a changing consensus in the world, or a result of following this(/these) thread(s), following Whatever, the recent Steubenville case (which is nearby to me), and the ridiculous amount of... [removed for being political] ...but to me, a white cisgendered adult male, it seems like sexism and everything related to it is more prevalent in the public mind and more not OK than ever. 

If it's not a public thing and it's only that it's more noticeable to me and more not OK than ever to me, then I am very appreciative to this(/these) thread(s) for bringing it to my attention.

Also, I know that most of us are still struggling writers with zero-few published works under our belts, but if you aren't aware of John Scalzi's Convention Harassment Policy, you may want to check it out and if you agree, co-sign: whatever.scalzi.com/2013/07/02/my-new-convention-harassment-policy/


----------



## Trick

Zero Angel said:


> the truth of the matter is that when girls at all stand up for themselves or are a little active in not being harassed, they usually get threatened with violence, murder and sexual violence. Who are the people threatening them? Usually not women.



I agree with the majority of your post but I think you need to revisit this thought. At all? a little active? I've seen everything from a woman telling a man to back off at a bar to massive feminist marches and all things in between where nothing remotely similar to what you are suggesting happened. Usually is sometimes a useless word and that may be the problem. And, basically, all I'm saying is that this is a blanket statement that comes across the wrong way, an offensive way. If I'm wrong and you did mean it exactly as it sounds, then I apologize and say that I disagree with you wholeheartedly but to each their own.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Trick said:


> I agree with the majority of your post but I think you need to revisit this thought. At all? a little active? I've seen everything from a woman telling a man to back off at a bar to massive feminist marches and all things in between where nothing remotely similar to what you are suggesting happened. Usually is sometimes a useless word and that may be the problem. And, basically, all I'm saying is that this is a blanket statement that comes across the wrong way, an offensive way. If I'm wrong and you did mean it exactly as it sounds, then I apologize and say that I disagree with you wholeheartedly but to each their own.



Actually, I believe Zero Angel meant it exactly as it sounds, because that's pretty much what happens, cross-culturally.  It's worse in some places and more subtle in others, but it happens none-the-less.  As girls we're taught that "boys are only mean to you if they like you."  And as women we're sent the message loud and clear that "bad things happen to bad girls."  There are still places even here in the US where female victims of sexual assault are questioned about their behavior and clothing choices prior to being attacked, and if those choices were somehow "wrong" then they were somehow "asking for it."  And in parts of the world, just going out in public alone is transgressive enough behavior to be "asking for it."


----------



## Trick

A. E. Lowan said:


> Actually, I believe Zero Angel meant it exactly as it sounds, because that's pretty much what happens, cross-culturally.  It's worse in some places and more subtle in others, but it happens none-the-less.  As girls we're taught that "boys are only mean to you if they like you."  And as women we're sent the message loud and clear that "bad things happen to bad girls."  There are still places even here in the US where female victims of sexual assault are questioned about their behavior and clothing choices prior to being attacked, and if those choices were somehow "wrong" then they were somehow "asking for it."  And in parts of the world, just going out in public alone is transgressive enough behavior to be "asking for it."



Since this forum is not for debating politics I'll try to avoid that vein of this discussion. I am aware that there are bad men in the world. They do bad things, often times to women, but also to other men. Bad things happen to bad girls? Bad things happen to bad boys too. We are also taught that. And boys that are mean to girls on the playground to show affection need to be taught the right way. However, the differences that exist in the experiences of men and women are something that I appreciate. You both seem to be saying that a woman who stands up for herself will be raped, beaten or worse... usually. That's ridiculous. How many women stand up for themselves everyday? Many! If they did it in a crime ridden area at night with no friends around then we've got a bad situation. Yes, if a man did that he might get mugged or killed but it would be very likely to have worse repercussions for a woman. Unfortunately, there are criminals who prey on women that way and I'm of a mind to make their punishments more severe and to make it easier for victims to come forward in any way possible. There are also countries that have a very different view of these things than my own and I can do very little to change that. There are also women who have done things consensually and then called it something else. They hurt the cases of true victims and that's a shame. The system is broken blah blah blah. Nothing I can do but my part.

My message in a nutshell - I find it offensive, as a man, when women say that they think my whole sex is (usually) violent, sexist and demeaning to women. 

If that were the case, why do women still date/love/marry men? Why haven't they revolted against us in a military way? I believe women and men are people equally with differences far and wide that can be strengths or flaws. Not all women are one way and neither are all men, not even usually.


----------



## Feo Takahari

I've been debating whether or not to post this, but I think it might actually be relevant here.

Prior to going to college in a town full of hippies, I rarely encountered kids my age who didn't act in accordance with gender stereotypes. The few who acted more unusually tended to be social rejects--not necessarily bullied, but seldom spoken to by their peers. I can't prove causation here, but it seems like reasonable speculation to me that the reason so many girls who seemed to be intelligent only expressed interest in girly hobbies, girly activities, and girly aspirations was that they didn't want to risk social rejection.

At college, everyone seems to feel safer. They can say something weird, do something weird, _be_ something weird, and no one else will tell them they can't. But whenever I go back home, I feel like I'm leaving my little bubble of security, and I think there are still a lot of towns that don't have a bubble to hide in.

Fiction was my first exposure to women who weren't afraid--women who could be whatever they wanted and be praised and admired for it. It provided a model for me to work off of, and I think it might provide the same model for a girl who's debating whether to do something different with her life.


----------



## Trick

Feo Takahari said:


> Fiction was my first exposure to women who weren't afraid--women who could be whatever they wanted and be praised and admired for it. It provided a model for me to work off of, and I think it might provide the same model for a girl who's debating whether to do something different with her life.



I think this is one of the many reasons I'll encourage my kids to read more and watch less. It seems many authors have the wisdom and insight to portray women, and men, in a light that shows children and young adults the possibilities, not the strictures. So many movies and TV shows portray the stereotypes - women who love shopping and gossiping etc and men who love sports and talk endlessly about their obsession with sex. Even in shows I enjoy, ie Friends, the one man who doesn't like sports is also needy and insecure to the point of hilarity (really, chandler was quite funny) but rarely do I see a male character who doesn't fit the stereotype and isn't also portrayed as the weak, unmanly guy. I get a lot more enjoyment out of the characters who break the mold in a good way, male or female, and I see it much more often in books than I do in movies and TV shows.


----------



## Zero Angel

Trick said:


> I agree with the majority of your post but I think you need to revisit this thought. At all? a little active? I've seen everything from a woman telling a man to back off at a bar to massive feminist marches and all things in between where nothing remotely similar to what you are suggesting happened. Usually is sometimes a useless word and that may be the problem. And, basically, all I'm saying is that this is a blanket statement that comes across the wrong way, an offensive way. If I'm wrong and you did mean it exactly as it sounds, then I apologize and say that I disagree with you wholeheartedly but to each their own.



Hmm. I surprised you've seen a woman tell a man to back off at a bar actually. I've seen this in fiction, but in real life I've only ever see women pretend to be nice and try to get away, because they know if they're actually rude it will turn south on them, usually they are only successful in getting away with the assistance of other friends, or else they will try to avoid conflict as much as they possibly can. May I ask what sort of area you're from? I'm a bit more rural in Western PA/Northeastern OH. I can imagine something like what you're describing happen in a liberal metropolitan area. 

That said, I suppose what I was mostly referring to is when a woman stands up for herself alone. In marches and parades there's some degree of anonymity or at least protection by being a part of a crowd. But when you have instances like what happened to Anita Sarkeesian "Tropes vs Women in Video Games" and what happened when Adria Richards tweeted a photo of two guys making sexual jokes. As the article about Anita Sarkeesian mentioned, the same sort of abuse has recently been leveled at Jennifer Hepler, Aisha Tyler, and Felicia Day. 

Not to mention just in general, whenever a group of people disapprove of a woman, whether that's a woman with power, a popular woman, a celebrity, or whatever, it's almost always going to be sexual threats. I'm not saying guys don't get sexual threats, but I have never heard anyone casually suggest a law-abiding guy should be R'ed (I have heard it said about guys that break specific laws and pretty much universally applied to anyone going to jail ever). 

To bring it back on topic: It's the same thing in fiction really. When a guy gets captured in an adult novel, I'm usually not worried (I'm not saying I'm never worried, but sexual violence is almost never a possibility), but when a girl or woman gets captured, there's a pit that forms inside my stomach as I dread what the villain is going to do. 



Trick said:


> ...They do bad things, often times to women, but also to other men. Bad things happen to bad girls? Bad things happen to bad boys too. We are also taught that....You both seem to be saying that a woman who stands up for herself will be R'ed, beaten or worse... usually. That's ridiculous. How many women stand up for themselves everyday? Many! If they did it in a crime ridden area at night with no friends around then we've got a bad situation. Yes, if a man did that he might get mugged or killed but it would be very likely to have worse repercussions for a woman.
> 
> ...I find it offensive, as a man, when women say that they think my whole sex is (usually) violent, sexist and demeaning to women.
> 
> If that were the case, why do women still date/love/marry men? Why haven't they revolted against us in a military way? I believe women and men are people equally with differences far and wide that can be strengths or flaws. Not all women are one way and neither are all men, not even usually.


I think the difference here is what constitutes a "bad girl" and a "bad boy" though. To many, a "bad girl" is anyone that doesn't go along with the crowd, or anyone that isn't in a burka or was in the wrong place. 

What I find offensive is the idea that men are so depraved that the only thing preventing them from R'ing girls is the girl being in garments covering her from head to toe. I'm going to go out on a limb and say if a girl walks up to me naked as the day they were born, I'm not going to R them. So the idea that a woman is "asking for it" blows my mind. To be fair, this is one area where speculative fiction does an alright job. If R does occur in a novel, it's not usually because a woman was wearing the "wrong thing", and usually because the one committing the crime is depraved. Outside of fiction, we almost immediately start to justify it in any way possible. 

As far as why women haven't revolted or hate men, etc, well, quite a lot of them have and do. Many people that choose to not be heterosexual (as opposed to the ones that are born that way) do it because of traumatic experiences. A lot of other women are socially conditioned to accept everything that's handed to them, and many women believe that just like not every American hates Canada, not every guy is representative of what they find distasteful about men. 

I used to hate all men (I'm a guy by the way if that wasn't apparent), and thought that all men (with very few exceptions) were disgusting pigs that if the opportunity came up to take advantage of someone, they would, and at the very least they would lie, cheat and steal in order to get anyone into bed with them, would not stay loyal and basically were heartless when it came to treating women like they mattered. Now I'm starting to believe that a lot of what was claimed to be biological differences between men and women is more likely social conditioning and if people are raised better or have better role models they can turn out differently in spite of biology, but that original belief is something I held for a good 8-12 years of my life (from 10-24 or so).

To keep on topic, how does this affect men and women in my novels? Well, I have a lot of jerks for characters to be honest. I suppose without consciously being aware of it, I still go off the assumption that most guys are crap. Interestingly, I don't usually have male villains be evil because of that though, it's usually because of more willful reasons (such as jealousy, being in a cult, wanting to weaken the world's magick so that demons are able to invade because they are a demon, etc). The crap characters are usually minor obstacles or showcases of how crappy locations/people are. 

And surprisingly enough, some of my women villains are crappy in the way that I usually think of guys being  granted, the one was secretly a demon that was probably male, but appeared as female for a good portion of the first book, the other one is just a complete jerk and is only mentioned in the first book (with larger roles in future books). 

Now that I'm a little more aware of that, I'm going to have to make sure I don't fall into any habits with future villains.


----------



## Zero Angel

Maybe it's because I am more tuned in to geek culture than I ever have been before is why I keep seeing all of these examples of terrible things. But here is a summary of what happened in 2012 for geek culture (which I believe as a speculative fiction author, I am solidly placed into):

Daily Dot Article

Again, not only are we (as spec fic authors) existing within this culture, a lot of these examples are actually of women in fantasy, so completely on-topic.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Zero Angel said:


> Maybe it's because I am more tuned in to geek culture than I ever have been before is why I keep seeing all of these examples of terrible things. But here is a summary of what happened in 2012 for geek culture (which I believe as a speculative fiction author, I am solidly placed into):
> 
> Daily Dot Article
> 
> Again, not only are we (as spec fic authors) existing within this culture, a lot of these examples are actually of women in fantasy, so completely on-topic.



Looks like they've got all the usual suspects. I am so sick of this manufactured controversy over how the recent Tomb Raider, one of the most feminist games I've ever played, is supposedly sexist. (To be fair, they also have some actual news in there, like all those cases of rape threats.)


----------



## Mindfire

Um, a minor point, if you're going to point to people who've been abused for standing up to The Man, Anita Sarkeesian is not a particularly good example. All indications are that she intentionally provoked the backlash she received (or at least indulged or enabled it) so that she would gain martyr points and thus more publicity and funding for her project. Furthermore, the actual points she makes in her videos are not terribly insightful and sometimes contradictory. And just to put the cherry on the sundae, while she has publicly made much hay out of the vicious and hateful messages she has received, she has never at any point (to my knowledge) attempted to engage in discussion with her more civil and thoughtful critics who have legitimate points to make and questions to ask about her work (unlike the good folks we've got in this thread). I wouldn't call this "standing up for your beliefs". And while she isn't nearly as bad as the vitriol-spewing neanderthals who resorted to cyberbullying because they couldn't form a more coherent response to her message, I still wouldn't call what she's done laudable. As I said, I don't find her videos to be terribly insightful anyway.


----------



## Feo Takahari

Actually, I was referring to the various rape threats associated with fighting games in the past year or two. The community has really come under fire lately.


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## Zero Angel

Mindfire said:


> Um, a minor point, if you're going to point to people who've been abused for standing up to The Man, Anita Sarkeesian is not a particularly good example. All indications are that she intentionally provoked the backlash she received (or at least indulged or enabled it) so that she would gain martyr points and thus more publicity and funding for her project. Furthermore, the actual points she makes in her videos are not terribly insightful and sometimes contradictory. And just to put the cherry on the sundae, while she has publicly made much hay out of the vicious and hateful messages she has received, she has never at any point (to my knowledge) attempted to engage in discussion with her more civil and thoughtful critics who have legitimate points to make and questions to ask about her work (unlike the good folks we've got in this thread). I wouldn't call this "standing up for your beliefs". And while she isn't nearly as bad as the vitriol-spewing neanderthals who resorted to cyberbullying because they couldn't form a more coherent response to her message, I still wouldn't call what she's done laudable. As I said, I don't find her videos to be terribly insightful anyway.


I don't care what your message is or whether it's laudable or not, but R threats are never OK. Maybe you believe that she uses them to get more funding and you're entitled to your opinion, but I'm not going to threaten to R you for having that opinion. And again, she was only one of MANY that were mentioned. Also, it's not standing up to "the Man", it's standing up period that I was referring to. 

I also disagree with your assessment here or know what "all indications" refers to. The only indications I've seen are that she did not take down the vitriol—according to her so people can see what's going on—has personally profited from the publicity, and has spoken out against the reactions to her and others. 

It seems like this may be venturing off-topic, so if you want to discuss her merits (or lack thereof) with me, then feel free to PM.


----------



## Zero Angel

Also @ Everyone: be wary of the search engines and maybe abbreviate words that we don't want Google associating Mythic Scribes with. That's why I keep saying "R this" and "R that"


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## Feo Takahari

I don't feel like we can have the conversation without the word. The word is shocking by its mere mention, and I think it should be shocking. If we call it R, we might as well be calling it surprise sex.

I'm not sure I get the specific paranoia over this one word. When I posted a topic about the creation of homemade bombs for use in domestic terrorism, no one panicked and told me to call it T so Google wouldn't think we were Al Qaeda. But if we really can't have the word, let's just ban the topic like we keep considering doing.


----------



## Trick

Zero Angel said:


> Hmm. I surprised you've seen a woman tell a man to back off at a bar actually. I've seen this in fiction, but in real life I've only ever see women pretend to be nice and try to get away, because they know if they're actually rude it will turn south on them, usually they are only successful in getting away with the assistance of other friends, or else they will try to avoid conflict as much as they possibly can. May I ask what sort of area you're from? I'm a bit more rural in Western PA/Northeastern OH. I can imagine something like what you're describing happen in a liberal metropolitan area.



Yes, I've seen lone women stand up for themselves in a bar, on more than one occasion. I've also seen a women calmly try to avoid a guy who's being too forceful only to have other people, both guys and girls, get up and tell him to leave her alone; only to find out later that they didn't even know her and were just helping out. 
Actually, I live in a conservative rural area. That may seem impossible to some people but where I live the women are often doing the same things as the guys: Mud Bogging trucks, riding motorcycles, cutting down and splitting firewood, and all manner of things often falsely thought of as 'guys only.' I'm originally from near Seattle and I wasn't raised in a rural environment but I've been here now for about 12 years and it's awesome. My wife learned to use a chainsaw when she was a teenager. She also loves shopping, specifically for purses and shoes. I mention the second part because I don't want to give the impression of some old time tv show with country ladies who hate everything 'girly.' She, as so many women in my area, is a real woman who may fit a stereotype or two but breaks plenty of others. Stereotypes are what they are and some aren't actually bad - I'm Irish and I love whiskey and Guinness, a stereotype I'm proud to be part of. 



Zero Angel said:


> What I find offensive is the idea that men are so depraved that the only thing preventing them from R'ing girls is the girl being in garments covering her from head to toe. I'm going to go out on a limb and say if a girl walks up to me naked as the day they were born, I'm not going to R them. So the idea that a woman is "asking for it" blows my mind. To be fair, this is one area where speculative fiction does an alright job. If R does occur in a novel, it's not usually because a woman was wearing the "wrong thing", and usually because the one committing the crime is depraved. Outside of fiction, we almost immediately start to justify it in any way possible.



I agree, no matter how a woman is dressed R is abominable and despicable in all situations. The only caveat I'd add is that sometimes there are definite cases where R is claimed and proven false. I don't know why any woman would do that beyond having a history of abuse that is't brought to light but it does hurt other R cases and that is a terrible shame. 

When you say, "we almost immediately start to justify it in any way possible." maybe I'm not sure how you mean it but I disagree. I think the media might do that but I don't think the average citizen does. I've said before, I think any punishment is too light for a R..ist. I'm in favor of harsher sentences for R, murder, child abuse etc...  



Zero Angel said:


> As far as why women haven't revolted or hate men, etc, well, quite a lot of them have and do. Many people that choose to not be heterosexual (as opposed to the ones that are born that way) do it because of traumatic experiences. A lot of other women are socially conditioned to accept everything that's handed to them, and many women believe that just like not every American hates Canada, not every guy is representative of what they find distasteful about men.



That analogy is poor because I don't think I've ever met someone who hates Canada. Canadians are awesome! I know of disagreements with their government structure but that's about it. 

I don't think I need to restate my feelings on cases like that. It makes my skin crawl to even think about that kind of evil. I'm not surprised by the decision of some of the victims.

I was conditioned to believe everything that was handed to me... and I rejected a lot of it anyway. So did the women in my life. They are their own people and pavlovian approaches by authority figures didn't hold them back. 



Zero Angel said:


> I used to hate all men (I'm a guy by the way if that wasn't apparent), and thought that all men (with very few exceptions) were disgusting pigs that if the opportunity came up to take advantage of someone, they would, and at the very least they would lie, cheat and steal in order to get anyone into bed with them, would not stay loyal and basically were heartless when it came to treating women like they mattered. Now I'm starting to believe that a lot of what was claimed to be biological differences between men and women is more likely social conditioning and if people are raised better or have better role models they can turn out differently in spite of biology, but that original belief is something I held for a good 8-12 years of my life (from 10-24 or so).



Whatever experience or information that led you to believe that about your own sex was unfortunate. Yes, there are many men out there with less self-control than lots of dogs I know. They typically had bad parents. As you say, better role models and being raised by conscientious parents is the solution. I firmly believe it is the responsibility of men to fix the man problem. Why are there so many dirtbags? Because fathers don't teach their sons. They don't work every day to mold their sons in to good men. When they do, amazing things can happen.

As a final note, this is off topic as you say. I'd add that it also isn't in a way. I think it's our responsibility as writers to protray women correctly in our work: as people first! I use the women in my life as the molds for my female characters whenever I can because so many of them are fantastic people and I love to see how they are on the pages of a book


----------



## Mindfire

Zero Angel said:


> I don't care what your message is or whether it's laudable or not, but R threats are never OK. Maybe you believe that she uses them to get more funding and you're entitled to your opinion, but I'm not going to threaten to R you for having that opinion. And again, she was only one of MANY that were mentioned. Also, it's not standing up to "the Man", it's standing up period that I was referring to.
> 
> I also disagree with your assessment here or know what "all indications" refers to. The only indications I've seen are that she did not take down the vitriol—according to her so people can see what's going on—has personally profited from the publicity, and has spoken out against the reactions to her and others.
> 
> It seems like this may be venturing off-topic, so if you want to discuss her merits (or lack thereof) with me, then feel free to PM.



Well of course r**e threats are not okay. This should be an obvious and therefore unnecessary statement. My point was not to say that the threats were okay. My point is that Anita Sarkeesian is not someone we should seek to canonize into sainthood. There's a big difference between someone standing up for their beliefs on principle and someone intentionally trolling the internet to make a profit.


----------



## Mindfire

Trick said:


> I firmly believe it is the responsibility of men to fix the man problem. Why are there so many dirtbags? Because fathers don't teach their sons. They don't work every day to mold their sons in to good men. When they do, amazing things can happen.



This. This so much. The catastrophic failure of so many fathers in this nation is astounding. Especially in the Black community. The fact that I and my sister have an awesome dad who's still married to my mom and was directly involved in raising us is the rough equivalent of winning the lottery (slight hyperbole in terms of raw mathematics). That's just... sad.


----------



## Trick

Mindfire said:


> The fact that I and my sister have an awesome dad who's still married to my mom and was directly involved in raising me is the rough equivalent of me winning the lottery. That's just... sad.



I couldn't agree more. My mother passed away when I was about 18 months old. I'm the youngest of seven, two of whom were off on there own already by that time. My father raised five children alone. Every one of us is a law abiding, genuinely good person. Though he has his flaws, my father is a hero to me. I have two boys and plan to have more kids and I want to do my best everyday to teach them how to be men in the noble sense of the word. I'm also lucky enough to have a wonderful wife and together I think we can do it. I can't even imagine going it alone.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Although the comments here are civil & respectful, we're veering away from fantasy writing and into the realms of social commentary (as mentioned in some of the recent posts). Please, let's rein it back into how these topics are represented in fiction.

Thanks.


----------



## Mindfire

So how about this short film?






That was pretty awesome. Well, except for


Spoiler: thing that almost ruins the film



Wonder Woman standing by and letting her date get the crap beaten out of him. So much for love and compassion for all humanity. That was both harsh and out of character.


----------



## Zero Angel

Feo Takahari said:


> I don't feel like we can have the conversation without the word. The word is shocking by its mere mention, and I think it should be shocking. If we call it R, we might as well be calling it surprise sex.
> 
> I'm not sure I get the specific paranoia over this one word. When I posted a topic about the creation of homemade bombs for use in domestic terrorism, no one panicked and told me to call it T so Google wouldn't think we were Al Qaeda. But if we really can't have the word, let's just ban the topic like we keep considering doing.



I think Mythic Scribes is big enough now that it shouldn't matter, but I just know that Black Dragon has dropped in on a couple of threads before that were starting to talk about R and CP, etc, so why tempt fate (or dragons)? There's been talk of banning another topic? I've been out of it. 

I'd really like to watch the video but recently had my unlimited status revoked, so I will just imagine what it is supposed to be about...IS IT A DRAGONLANCE MOVIE?!?! FIZBAN!!!


----------



## Mindfire

Zero Angel said:


> I'd really like to watch the video but recently had my unlimited status revoked, so I will just imagine what it is supposed to be about...IS IT A DRAGONLANCE MOVIE?!?! FIZBAN!!!



What do you mean you had your unlimited status revoked? And no it's not Dragonlance, but it is relevant.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Mindfire said:


> So how about this short film?
> That was pretty awesome. Well, except for
> 
> 
> Spoiler: thing that almost ruins the film
> 
> 
> 
> Wonder Woman standing by and letting her date get the crap beaten out of him. So much for love and compassion for all humanity. That was both harsh and out of character.



Totally with you on the spoiler, Mindfire.  Even though it was a fan film, and for a fan film it was well made, it reminds me of all the reasons the pilot never got off the ground.  Of course, my thought about it naturally becomes...



Spoiler: Bad Guy Spoiler



Why does the lead bad guy a) not only have his jacket buttoned up over his gun until the very last second; b) wait until said last second to draw it; and c) hesitate to shoot just because some shlub jumps in the way?  Did he, what, forget how to villain that morning?



But then, I do love my bad guys.


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## Zero Angel

Mindfire said:


> What do you mean you had your unlimited status revoked? And no it's not Dragonlance, but it is relevant.



Sorry. Typed too fast. I meant unlimited data has vanished from my Internet so I'm keeping a close eye on every MB. Videos eat it up.


----------



## Mindfire

A. E. Lowan said:


> Totally with you on the spoiler, Mindfire.  Even though it was a fan film, and for a fan film it was well made, it reminds me of all the reasons the pilot never got off the ground.  Of course, my thought about it naturally becomes...
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Bad Guy Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> Why does the lead bad guy a) not only have his jacket buttoned up over his gun until the very last second; b) wait until said last second to draw it; and c) hesitate to shoot just because some shlub jumps in the way?  Did he, what, forget how to villain that morning?
> 
> 
> 
> But then, I do love my bad guys.



I agree. Things like that really lose the film points in my book. I liked the "don't judge a book by its cover" take, the reveal was great, and so were the... brief cameos, shall we say, at the end. But I still can't give the film full marks because of those glaring character flaws.


----------



## glutton

Mindfire said:


> There's a big difference between someone standing up for their beliefs on principle and someone intentionally trolling the internet to make a profit.



Which one you think she is doing is an opinion though unless you're a telepath like Martian Manhunter...


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## JBryden88

I think in fantasy there's room for all kinds of women, just as there are for men. Heroic, feminine, masculine, gay, straight, cowardly, good, evil, etc.

I've got alot of projects all in various stages, and one thing I do is I base it off of the culture I'm writing about. The culture that is effectively the main culture, is a tribal, barbarian culture where EVERYONE is equal as long as they are strong, and do their part. Are there weak women? Yep. Same with weak men.

Gender shouldn't have to matter beyond the equipment a person has on their person. IMO.


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## Mindfire

glutton said:


> Which one you think she is doing is an opinion though unless you're a telepath like Martian Manhunter...



Oh, darn. Looks like my secret is out.


----------



## saellys

Mindfire said:


> Um, a minor point, if you're going to point to people who've been abused for standing up to The Man, Anita Sarkeesian is not a particularly good example. All indications are that she intentionally provoked the backlash she received (or at least indulged or enabled it) so that she would gain martyr points and thus more publicity and funding for her project.



Am I to understand that you think Anita Sarkeesian was asking for it? Because I can't see this boiling down to any other sentiment, but feel free to backpedal. And oh please, do let me know what all those indications are. PM if you want so we don't derail this mess even more. 



Mindfire said:


> Furthermore, the actual points she makes in her videos are not terribly insightful and sometimes contradictory. And just to put the cherry on the sundae, while she has publicly made much hay out of the vicious and hateful messages she has received, she has never at any point (to my knowledge) attempted to engage in discussion with her more civil and thoughtful critics who have legitimate points to make and questions to ask about her work (unlike the good folks we've got in this thread). I wouldn't call this "standing up for your beliefs". And while she isn't nearly as bad as the vitriol-spewing neanderthals who resorted to cyberbullying because they couldn't form a more coherent response to her message, I still wouldn't call what she's done laudable. As I said, I don't find her videos to be terribly insightful anyway.



It's cool that you don't personally get anything out of her videos, but she has no obligation to engage in discussion with her critics apart from the videos she makes, nor to keep silent or observe some arbitrary, externally-set maximum threshold when talking about the harassment she received. (Because women don't get told to not talk about harassment at all, ever, nope!) 

I just looked up that oh-so-controversial Kickstarter, and the most recent version was updated when she got 2,000 backers (the funding closed with almost 7,000 backers). She posted a nice thank you message and picture, a couple links to the more egregious examples of harassment for quick reference, a vague description of the measures she took to protect herself against threats that she had to take seriously, and a couple links to press around the Internet. It all seemed perfectly straightforward to me, and was never played for anyone's pity. Sarkeesian is no one's helpless damsel, woe-is-me-ing her way to Kickstarter stretch goals. 

At no point in the original description for the project, or anywhere else I could find, did Sarkeesian say she wanted to open a dialogue between herself and anyone else. She did say she wanted to "contribute to and help amplify the existing conversations" _with her videos_. Not personally respond to everyone who has a problem with how she does what she does. Her videos adequately represent her opinions, and the fact that she does not elaborate in long-winded comment exchanges or Twitter wars or whatever else should not count against her character. No one wants to saint her, so could you not go to the opposite extreme by villainizing her?


----------



## Mindfire

saellys said:


> Am I to understand that you think Anita Sarkeesian was asking for it? Because I can't see this boiling down to any other sentiment, but feel free to backpedal. And oh please, do let me know what all those indications are. PM if you want so we don't derail this mess even more.



"Asking for it"? I'm no rhetorician, but I know a loaded phrase when I see one. I would not say she was "asking for it". But I would say that she may have gone into this expecting to get a certain amount of backlash, and then carefully calculated her actions to take advantage of this fact. Her messages do not appeal to me, but Sarkeesian is intelligent and educated. She knows how to provoke a response. And when you're dealing with a group (let's say, gamers) which is known to have strong opinions and attachments to something and which has within it a certain subclass infamous for a lack of civility, it's not difficult to predict what response you might get and find a way to take advantage of it. I'm not saying she created sock puppets to publicly defame her, but IIRC she also didn't censor comments until after she no longer needed her haters. Shrewdness is not a bad quality, but let's not start calling her a hero.



saellys said:


> It's cool that you don't personally get anything out of her videos, but she has no obligation to engage in discussion with her critics apart from the videos she makes, nor to keep silent or observe some arbitrary, externally-set maximum threshold when talking about the harassment she received. (Because women don't get told to not talk about harassment at all, ever, nope!)
> 
> I just looked up that oh-so-controversial Kickstarter, and the most recent version was updated when she got 2,000 backers (the funding closed with almost 7,000 backers). She posted a nice thank you message and picture, a couple links to the more egregious examples of harassment for quick reference, a vague description of the measures she took to protect herself against threats that she had to take seriously, and a couple links to press around the Internet. It all seemed perfectly straightforward to me, and was never played for anyone's pity. Sarkeesian is no one's helpless damsel, woe-is-me-ing her way to Kickstarter stretch goals.
> 
> At no point in the original description for the project, or anywhere else I could find, did Sarkeesian say she wanted to open a dialogue between herself and anyone else. She did say she wanted to "contribute to and help amplify the existing conversations" with her videos. Not personally respond to everyone who has a problem with how she does what she does. Her videos adequately represent her opinions, and the fact that she does not elaborate in long-winded comment exchanges or Twitter wars or whatever else should not count against her character. No one wants to saint her, so could you not go to the opposite extreme by villainizing her?



It is not my intent to villainize. But I will admit my opinions on her are incredibly biased. When someone proclaims that Lego Batman and Nerf guns are somehow psychologically damaging and tropes are bad because they exist (context be damned), I am prone to treat them with suspicion.


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## saellys

Yeah, the loaded phrase was intentional. You said she enabled her own harassment. That logic sounds really familiar. 

Her project was fully funded in under 24 hours, so at which point did she need her haters?


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## Steerpike

I'm not that familiar with Sarkeesian apart from her "Damsel in Distress" videos, but the impression I got from those wasn't that the trope was bad because it exists, but that it is was bad because of the extent to which it exists and dominates the medium.


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## saellys

^ And that in the case of her "Tropes vs. Women" series, the dominant themes are overwhelmingly harmful to female characters. So no, not "tropes are bad because they're sexist," but "tropes are bad when they're sexist."


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## Mindfire

saellys said:


> Yeah, the loaded phrase was intentional. You said she enabled her own harassment. That logic sounds really familiar.



The rather large difference being that in this case the response she got was both forseen and profitable. 



saellys said:


> Her project was fully funded in under 24 hours, so at which point did she need her haters?



My understanding is that prior to her project being funded, her videos were freely available for comment. After the project was funding, comments were closed. 

Step 1: Allow haters to act like idiots
Step 2: Point to this as evidence of persecution
Step 3: Profit
Step 4: Disable the comments before intelligent commenters can arrive with legitimate points.



Steerpike said:


> I'm not that familiar with Sarkeesian apart from her "Damsel in Distress" videos, but the impression I got from those wasn't that the trope was bad because it exists, but that it is was bad because of the extent to which it exists and dominates the medium.





saellys said:


> ^ And that in the case of her "Tropes vs. Women" series, the dominant themes are overwhelmingly harmful to female characters. So no, not "tropes are bad because they're sexist," but "tropes are bad when they're sexist."



Her argument would have been more persuasive had she not chosen Mario of all things as her prime example, while carefully cherry-picking her evidence in the process.


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## saellys

She probably knew to expect a certain level of animosity from the gaming community. Maybe she made the conscious decision to be optimistic about the potential responses and move forward in good faith, in which case I applaud her. I very much doubt that she expected the extreme responses she received. If I was Sarkeesian and someone told me in advance that I would receive rape threats and death threats for attempting to fund my video series, I might think twice about it. I don't know what Sarkeesian would do, but it's a moot point since she didn't know in advance, as evidenced by the fact that she had to take measures to protect herself. 

As for profitable, how many people funded her out of pity (or in order to leave a nasty comment because you can't comment on a Kickstarter without backing it) vs. how many funded her because they liked the idea, which they happened to hear about because of the publicity of all her haters, is a question for the backers, not for Sarkeesian. Again, it's not something that should reflect on her character. She is under no obligation to enable comments on her videos. If people want to talk about the videos or about her in a negative light, they will (see also: you). Why should she have to wade through thousands of people who would spew hate on her videos to find the few sensible human beings who have good points to make? 

I'm sorry a thing you like got called out for employing an old trope. It happens. Like I said, you can dismiss her points and her methods, but that does not add up to Sarkeesian milking her own harassment.


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## Mindfire

Speculation can go both ways, fair enough. Regardless, weathering internet harassment is not a qualification for sainthood. Nor does it make her opinions sacrosanct, or even correct.


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## bjza

Mindfire said:


> Speculation can go both ways, fair enough. Regardless, weathering internet harassment is not a qualification for sainthood. Nor does it make her opinions sacrosanct, or even correct.


Except for the part of her argument claiming that women are being objectified. The out-of-proportion rape threats maybe kinda count as evidence there.


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## Devor

bjza said:


> Except for the part of her argument claiming that women are being objectified. The out-of-proportion rape threats maybe kinda count as evidence there.



Yeah, but that happens. Scroll through the comments on any controversial post on the internet, and unless the moderators are good, people of all colors are vicious and cruel and threatening against everyone for everything. Using those kinds of comments as proof of an argument doesn't prove anything except that people are exceptional at finding ways to be nasty.


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## Steerpike

She makes good points in her video, however. Most of the counter to it is base din ad-hominem attacks or blanket dismissals without even a fraction of the support she offers for her own viewpoint in the videos. If someone puts together a well-supported refutation, I'd be interested in seeing it.


----------



## Devor

Steerpike said:


> She makes good points in her video, however. Most of the counter to it is base din ad-hominem attacks or blanket dismissals without even a fraction of the support she offers for her own viewpoint in the videos. If someone puts together a well-supported refutation, I'd be interested in seeing it.



Didn't I make a whole bunch of points about the video already, like how those games have to find motivation in ten seconds or less, or how the games which actually develop storylines have plenty of well-developed heroines and women still don't play them?

To that I could add, Zelda for instance is not "the helpful princess," but the title character of the series. Making her playable would mean killing her personality and stripping her of dialogue - ala Link - because that's what they do to playable characters so that you as a player can feel like things are happening to you.

And of course, anyone who understands marketing would tell you that there are games targeting women - and that's why she's playing them. The weirdest thing is, despite all the complaints, there are many, many women _who do not like other women_, so having a female protagonist often does not mean drawing women as an audience. On the other hand, having a hero with feminine features often counters that, and that's why Link looks like Peter Pan, a male character who's often played in theaters by a woman.

If anything the video shows a rampant misunderstanding of the gaming industry. For instance, Nintendo *cannot easily* put Princess Peach in a mainline mario game. As she mentions in the video, Peach is established, now, as having the "awesome ability to float," so Nintendo's choices are to make her imbalanced and gamebreaking, or disappointingly lacking her signature traits.

Besides which, if you talk about Princess Peach as a model for women, is Mario really any less of a stereotype? If you think about Zelda, is wordless Link any preferable? And don't these games teach men to fight for the women they care about?

She makes it out to be the journey of Barney, finding a girl and making a conquest not caring about who she is or what she says, but as a guy who's played these games, I can tell you: It's much closer to the emotional journey of Ted, who's girl has no lines because you haven't met her yet.


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## Steerpike

Devor, all I see are a bunch of rationalizations with a "No True Scotsman" sort of fallacy thrown in for good measure. None of what you wrote counters the point made that the tropes are widespread or even dominant in the industry. You seem to concede that point, while providing a series of rationales as to why the gaming industry has to be that way. I don't buy it. If a game with a female MC is unsuccessful, it's because the MC is female (if it is not because of that, it is irrelevant to the current discussion). Females are catty bitches who won't want to play female characters anyway? That seems a bit of an overstatement. Your arguments amount to an assertion than the gaming industry can't be any other way than it is, for a variety of reasons, but the assertions aren't supported by anything other than opinion (and the aforementioned fallacy). 

If nothing else, I guess you and Sarkeesian agree that the damsel in distress trope is widespread.


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## Nihal

I know many women who play games. Few of them play with male characters when they can. The top reasons are: Avoid harassment (when online) or be able to stare at a fine exemplar of the opposite sex (which is one of the top reasons for males playing female avatars as well). I have yet to hear a woman who doesn't play female characters because they "don't like other women".

Sometimes they think twice about playing female characters because for some unknown reason the game developers like to pick high pitched voice actresses and no one can stand an hour of 4-years-old annoying shrieks (unless you picked the gender/race just to annoy your friends, heh). But it's a game design flaw, it's not due the character gender.

Speaking of solo games, I don't think Chell being a female kept people from playing Portal. She's a silent protagonist, yes, so what? That's how the game was design, regardless of the gender of the MC. That's how it was supposed to be.


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## Mindfire

Steerpike said:


> She makes good points in her video, however. Most of the counter to it is base din ad-hominem attacks or blanket dismissals without even a fraction of the support she offers for her own viewpoint in the videos. If someone puts together a well-supported refutation, I'd be interested in seeing it.



With regard to her damsels in distress videos specifically, she outright ignores context in favor of cherry-picking things that support her views. For example, "damsel" characters are overwhelmingly *not the main character*. (Except for Zelda, who's pretty central to the mythos of her series and even has her name in the title, which is a completely different counter-argument.) So complaining that these characters aren't given enough focus kind of misses the point. Secondary characters will be developed less than the main character. That's what "secondary" means. And in the early days of gaming from which titles like Mario hail, due to hardware limitations character development was pretty spare for _everyone_, so I'm not sure what she was expecting. Furthermore, she admits to outright ignoring all games in which Peach is playable and/or has a large role because they're "not part of the _real_ Mario series, so they don't count." "No true Scotsman" much?


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## Penpilot

Here are a few youtube videos that argue against Sarkeesian. The youtuber that made them is a bit of a dick sometimes but he does do some research.


Feminism versus FACTS (RE Damsel in distress) - YouTube
Feminism versus FACTS (Part 2) - YouTube
Feminism versus FACTS (Part 3, RE Damsel in distress II) - YouTube


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## Mindfire

Penpilot said:


> Here are a few youtube videos that argue against Sarkeesian. The youtuber that made them is a bit of a dick sometimes but he does do some research.
> 
> Feminism versus FACTS (RE Damsel in distress) - YouTube
> Feminism versus FACTS (Part 2) - YouTube
> Feminism versus FACTS (Part 3, RE Damsel in distress II) - YouTube



Cursory observation: I don't like the title of the videos. "Feminism vs. Facts" sounds like the entire movement is on trial rather than Sarkeesian's personal brand of it. When it comes to something as disparate and almost hydra-like as feminism, generalizations are often counterproductive and unhelpful I've found (by experience). This makes me less than optimistic that these videos can adequately rebut Sarkeesian, but I'll watch them and see.


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## Penpilot

Mindfire said:


> Cursory observation: I don't like the title of the videos. "Feminism vs. Facts" sounds like the entire movement is on trial rather than Sarkeesian's personal brand of it.



In the video the tells why he's using the title. It's in response to her title Tropes vs Women.


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## Steerpike

Penpilot said:


> Here are a few youtube videos that argue against Sarkeesian. The youtuber that made them is a bit of a dick sometimes but he does do some research.
> 
> 
> Feminism versus FACTS (RE Damsel in distress) - YouTube
> Feminism versus FACTS (Part 2) - YouTube
> Feminism versus FACTS (Part 3, RE Damsel in distress II) - YouTube



I saw those when they were first published. They're interesting, but as I recall the author's seemed to make the point that if there wasn't some conscious conspiracy going on among game makers, then the patterns of tropes didn't exist (or at least didn't matter). I don't think that follows.


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## saellys

Devor said:


> The weirdest thing is, despite all the complaints, there are many, many women _who do not like other women_, so having a female protagonist often does not mean drawing women as an audience. On the other hand, having a hero with feminine features often counters that, and that's why Link looks like Peter Pan, a male character who's often played in theaters by a woman.



This is one of the most illogical statements I've encountered on this forum so far. 

Firstly, yes, internalized misogyny and girl-hate is an issue. It's an issue I frequently encounter in the gaming/geek communities, where Special Snowflake Syndrome ("I'm not like other girls!") afflicts some of the more vocal gamer girls, thereby skewing perceptions. What I mean by that is that I know loads of gamer girls who aren't swimming in internalized misogyny or priding themselves on being "one of the guys" or suffering from SSS, but they're not vocal about it so all I really hear about in the bigger picture is the ones who are. 

Now, all of that being said, the fact that you seem to draw from this some justification for leaving female protagonists out of games utterly flabbergasts me. I can guarantee you that the women who will say "Ugh, a female protagonist? I hate women and I wouldn't touch this game with a ten-foot pole!" are vastly outnumbered by the women who will say "Finally, a new game with a female protagonist! I can't wait to play it." (See also: me, squeeing with excitement about the _Gone Home_ release next week.) 

Not to mention the male audience. This might shock you, but a lot of men would and do play games with female protagonists. I have yet to encounter "drawing women as an audience" as primary justification for making a game with a female protagonist, and that suggests to me questionable motives, so the whole basis of that argument is extremely suspect to me. 

Now, on to Peter Pan. He's often played in theaters by a woman because he's a perpetually-adolescent boy, not because he has "feminine" features. And as for Link, having a male protagonist with whatever miscellaneous aspects you consider "feminine" doesn't actually counter anything, because _it's still a male protagonist_. All that means is that boys with similar body types (_Zelda_'s target audience) get to see themselves represented, whereas girls get essentially nothing.


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## Jabrosky

saellys said:


> Not to mention the male audience. This might shock you, but a lot of men would and do play games with female protagonists.


I am one of these dudes. In fact whenever I play an RPG where you get to customize the player character's appearance, 9/10ths of the time I play a girl. I like role-playing as the opposite sex for some reason.


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## Steerpike

In MMOs, I make half of my characters female and half of them male. I like playing both.


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## A. E. Lowan

saellys said:


> And as for Link, having a male protagonist with whatever miscellaneous aspects you consider "feminine" doesn't actually counter anything, because _it's still a male protagonist_. All that means is that boys with similar body types (_Zelda_'s target audience) get to see themselves represented, whereas girls get essentially nothing.



Not to mention the fact that adult Link is a screaming hottie, if you're into pretty boys.  But, I digress to my happy place...

Being a female gamer (wait, gotta check... yup, they're still there), I can only speak for myself and the other gamer girls I know, but just about female gamer I know prefers to play female toons.  Even with the rampant sexual harassment that abounds in MMORPGs, I prefer to be a girl.  The only female gamer I know who prefers to play male toons is my writer partner (not because she has some sort of femme-hate or anything, she's just more comfortable that way), but she stopped because male players are HORRIBLE to other players they think are male.  I'd rather get players banned for hitting on me than put up with the range of name calling those poor boys suffer from.  And, trust me, once I establish my rep on a server, it takes a very brave soul indeed to try me.

As for console games, I like rp's  that have the option to play a female character, like Fable and Jade Empire and KOTOR.  There's just something so fun about being pretty as well as bad a**!  That might not very terribly feminist, but I like it.


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## Devor

Steerpike said:


> Devor, all I see are a bunch of rationalizations with a "No True Scotsman" sort of fallacy thrown in for good measure.



I was responding as much to your statement that every response you've seen was an ad-hominem attack. The fact that we've been through this before without my making such claims proves your statement patently false, and that you would be expected to know so.

It's a major issue in this conversation, I think, to characterize everyone who disagrees with something as making dirty nasty bigoted attacks.  I find that attitude reprehensible on a personal level.




> None of what you wrote counters the point made that the tropes are widespread or even dominant in the industry. You seem to concede that point, while providing a series of rationales as to why the gaming industry has to be that way.



Is it a straw man or a red herring to say that just the use of the trope is the point of the video which needs to be responded to?

I was responding to three points:
 - Is the damsel-in-distress overused.
 - Is the damsel-in-distress derogatory to women.
 - Are the particular instances of the damsel-in-distress which she focuses on insulting to women.

Is it overused?  It was radically overused for a while, like many fads in gaming. That's what I said the first time around. But it was never as omnipresent as it's being portrayed, and a great many games have female characters who are well-developed. I said at least that second part both times, and this plays into Mindfire's charge that she's cherry-picking her data.  There are many, many games which treat women well.

Is it derogatory to women?  I responded to that as well. She characterizes it as portraying women as a trophy, a prize to be won, with no character or personality of her own. I argued that it's not like that. For a guy playing those games, it's usually closer to the journey of Ted, from How I Met Your Mother, where the Mother never appears or says a word because he hasn't met her yet. That's why characters are silent. That's what they do in gaming - Nintendo does it very explicitly. They let you put yourself into the game, and make the character's personality out into whoever you want her to be. Giving Princess Peach a personality inside the game would dispel the ten-second emotion her scenes evoke. For those ten seconds, Mario is you, and Peach is whoever you would think of first in that situation - not consciously, but emotionally.

Are these particular instances all that bad?  Not really. She made a big deal of Peach being left out, so I responded that Nintendo can't bring her back because they've established her with this ability that would be overpowered. She argued that Zelda was nothing more than the "helpful princess," which is just above a damsel.  But as I said, that's bull, she's the title character, the only one in the series with much of a personality at all - a personality more prominent than Link, who doesn't even speak.

To these I'll add, she mentions a great number of Nintendo games, from Mario to Zelda to StarFox, and seems to have forgotten the most relevant Nintendo character out there:  Samus Aran took her helmet off at the end of Metroid, and millions of guys who thought they were playing as a male character realized they were playing as a girl.  Whatever harm Nintendo's games are perceived to have caused, certainly that trumps them.

So her conclusion - stated or implied - that the "damsel-in-distress" represents some kind of widespread misogyny, even at the game company she's targeting, would seem to be unfounded.




> I don't buy it. If a game with a female MC is unsuccessful, it's because the MC is female (if it is not because of that, it is irrelevant to the current discussion). Females are catty bitches who won't want to play female characters anyway? That seems a bit of an overstatement.



Did I say women are catty bitches?  No. I said that for whatever reason, some women don't like other women and aren't necessarily drawn to play female characters. I don't say why, I don't care why. However, it happens, it's documented.

And I was responding to another of the video's assertions: That games don't target women, which everyone argues a lack of "female protagonists" is proof of.  But it's not proof. There are many ways in which many games have appealed to women, who of course are a diverse group, and often want different - even contradictory - things from their entertainment.




> Your arguments amount to an assertion than the gaming industry can't be any other way than it is, for a variety of reasons, but the assertions aren't supported by anything other than opinion (and the aforementioned fallacy).



Just out of curiosity, which statement did I make that relies on the "no true scotsman fallacy"? You use that line a lot, and I don't understand why.




saellys said:


> Firstly, yes, internalized misogyny and girl-hate is an issue.....



I almost just skipped this paragraph, but I just want to say again that I'm not going to venture into that kind of psychology. There's plenty of male or "masculine" protagonists I can't stomach, for those same "masculine" traits, but I wouldn't call myself anti-male. I didn't mean the statement as a criticism of any kind.




> I have yet to encounter "drawing women as an audience" as primary justification for making a game with a female protagonist, and that suggests to me questionable motives, so the whole basis of that argument is extremely suspect to me.



I'm having trouble parsing this statement. You're questioning my motives for saying that a female protagonist doesn't necessarily draw in a female audience because nobody has said it does?

The video - and many people - have argued that games don't target women. What I've said is that some games have and do target women, they just don't do it in the way feminists want them to.  Marketing isn't about statements of people who say "Ugh, female protagonists." Marketing is about behavior, finding a message to connect needs with wants. If women don't buy the material, it doesn't matter why.

Women don't necessarily buy games and watch shows or read books about other women. A good portion of women just don't want to. Demand is lower for a female protagonist, and the markets follow suit.

I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing necessarily, but as an industry they're more or less behaving the way a knowledgeable outside observer would expect them to. It's not necessarily the rampant misogynistic bigotry it's being characterized as.




saellys said:


> Not to mention the male audience. This might shock you, but a lot of men would and do play games with female protagonists.



Have you ever played a game like WoW and talked to some of the guys who play female characters?  It's not necessarily an argument in favor of female protagonists = feminist ideals.


----------



## Steerpike

Devor said:


> It's a major issue in this conversation, I think, to characterize everyone who disagrees with something as making dirty nasty bigoted attacks.  I find that attitude reprehensible on a personal level.



So what? What does your hypersensitivity to being disagreed with have to do with the discussion?

Your arguments boil down to "I don't see it that way, so it's not true." You say it was overdone for a while, but it's not big deal because it was never omnipresent. But no one claimed it was omnipresent. It's not derogatory, because you don't see it as derogatory. 

A link for you: No true Scotsman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (in case you want to know what it is, but in re-reading your post it doesn't really apply as I agree with the point made).

What I'm interested in at this point is why you seem so quick to take offense whenever the topic of women in media (fantasy literature, movies, games, or whatever) is raised. It seems to me the topic is susceptible to discussion without getting your back up every time.


----------



## Devor

Steerpike said:


> So what? What does your hypersensitivity to being disagreed with have to do with the discussion?
> 
> . . . .
> 
> What I'm interested in at this point is why you seem so quick to take offense whenever the topic of women in media (fantasy literature, movies, games, or whatever) is raised. It seems to me the topic is susceptible to discussion without getting your back up every time.



I'm just going to say that I was very clear as to the point I take offense to. We have these discussions, we make these points, and then all of a sudden you dismiss all that by saying people are just attacking her personally.  No - people disagree with her. People have responded to her points. People can see the world differently. People aren't just being mean. To pretend that's what's happening just because someone disagrees with you is itself dismissive.




Steerpike said:


> Your arguments boil down to "I don't see it that way, so it's not true." You say it was overdone for a while, but it's not big deal because it was never omnipresent. But no one claimed it was omnipresent. It's not derogatory, because you don't see it as derogatory.



Here's the caption that comes with the video on YouTube:

"This video explores how the Damsel in Distress became one of the most widely used gendered clichÃ©s in the history of gaming and why the trope has been core to the popularization and development of the medium itself."

I'm not going to rewatch the video to source it, but I'm pretty sure she uses the word "omnipresent."

I could characterize her statements as "I see it this way, so it is true." Or "I see it as derogatory, so it's derogatory." The question has to be asked as whether it's necessarily derogatory, and it isn't.

That some people can rationally see it as derogatory, and others just as rationally not, speaks to a common and natural diversity of world views. And there's nothing wrong with that.

The real question is under what circumstances we as a society should take actions to accomodate those who see something as derogatory. I don't have a complete answer, but I don't believe the damsel in distress qualifies in most of the situations she spends her time discussing.


----------



## Feo Takahari

I think the question to be asking is, "What can we ask for that can be framed in such a way that companies won't be afraid to try it?" That is to say, of the various different kinds of "strong female characters" (protagonists and otherwise) that we might want to see in video games, which are and aren't marketable at the moment? From there, we can determine

1): What particular traits determine their marketability, and

2): What might _become_ marketable if we spin it the right way.

Edit: To give an example, there was a time and a place where Alis of Phantasy Star was a marketable protagonist. She's not especially complex, since she came from a time when most protagonists weren't complex, but she has at least the base elements of a "strong female character", and I think it's worth trying to find the reasons players were willing to buy a game with her on the cover.


----------



## Devor

Feo Takahari said:


> I think the question to be asking is, "What can we ask for that can be framed in such a way that companies won't be afraid to try it?"



In games I have no idea the answer to that question. The problem is that risks are hard to take in the gaming industry. Thousands of people, millions of dollars, go into one good game. Companies often stake their entire business on one single game doing well. They have core competencies that are hard to break away from. If female protagonists mean expecting even 90% of the audience, they're going to avoid it - and with so much often at stake, I have trouble saying that they're wrong to do so, at least in the aggregate.

Still, Nintendo at least tried:  Metroid Other M gave Samus a voice and a story. I haven't played it, but the story got panned in reviews.

Books are different. Investments are smaller. Publishers are venture capitalists - they invest in many things hoping that the handful of successes will make it worthwhile. Publishers can take a chance on just about anything if they want to, and with self-publishers paving the way, I imagine the market will shape itself eventually.  As I've said elsewhere, women in fantasy need to _develop_, some people need to think of new tropes and new archetypes and new paths of development, and then laud them front and center. That's not necessarily everybody's job, but eventually the better examples will get through.


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## Feo Takahari

Devor said:


> In games I have no idea the answer to that question. The problem is that risks are hard to take in the gaming industry. Thousands of people, millions of dollars, go into one good game. Companies often stake their entire business on one single game doing well.



In that case, should the expectation in games be laid on the smaller companies? They Bleed Pixels, for instance, seems to be selling well relative to its budget.

Then again, there's currently a lot of noise over whether The Last of Us features strong women. If it does, that's a game from a major publisher that set sales records. And while the Tomb Raider reboot didn't sell as much as the publisher expected, it did sell quite well by the developer's standards.*

* I know some people think the recent Tomb Raider didn't have a "strong" protagonist, but I think she's a pretty good character, all in all. I'll avoid getting into that for now lest we get sidetracked.


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## Zero Angel

saellys said:


> Not to mention the male audience. This might shock you, but a lot of men would and do play games with female protagonists. I have yet to encounter "drawing women as an audience" as primary justification for making a game with a female protagonist, and that suggests to me questionable motives, so the whole basis of that argument is extremely suspect to me.


I usually make characters based off my characters in games where I get to design them, so I am one of those males playing female toons. 



Devor said:


> In games I have no idea the answer to that question. The problem is that risks are hard to take in the gaming industry. Thousands of people, millions of dollars, go into one good game. Companies often stake their entire business on one single game doing well. They have core competencies that are hard to break away from. If female protagonists mean expecting even 90% of the audience, they're going to avoid it - and with so much often at stake, I have trouble saying that they're wrong to do so, at least in the aggregate.
> 
> Still, Nintendo at least tried:  Metroid Other M gave Samus a voice and a story. I haven't played it, but the story got panned in reviews.
> 
> Books are different. Investments are smaller. Publishers are venture capitalists - they invest in many things hoping that the handful of successes will make it worthwhile. Publishers can take a chance on just about anything if they want to, and with self-publishers paving the way, I imagine the market will shape itself eventually.  As I've said elsewhere, women in fantasy need to _develop_, some people need to think of new tropes and new archetypes and new paths of development, and then laud them front and center. That's not necessarily everybody's job, but eventually the better examples will get through.


Couple things to respond to here, but I'll just focus on one. Gaming is getting better. The rise of the indies is affecting gaming just like it has been affecting books. I am very hopeful for the future of gaming and think that if people have ideas they want to float that there IS a venue for them now even if they are not popular ideas.


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## saellys

Devor said:


> In games I have no idea the answer to that question. The problem is that risks are hard to take in the gaming industry. Thousands of people, millions of dollars, go into one good game. Companies often stake their entire business on one single game doing well. They have core competencies that are hard to break away from. If female protagonists mean expecting even 90% of the audience, they're going to avoid it - and with so much often at stake, I have trouble saying that they're wrong to do so, at least in the aggregate.



I read a figure last night (in an actual paper magazine article, or else I would link it) that said that even after games with female protagonists get greenlighted, they receive just 40% of the marketing money male-led games get. How in the world are games with woman protagonists supposed to reach the maximum audience if, even after they're produced, they have to get by with less than half of the marketing potential? 



Zero Angel said:


> I usually make characters based off my characters in games where I get to design them, so I am one of those males playing female toons.



I honestly wasn't even thinking of MMOs or character-customizing RPGs when I mentioned female protagonists, but all the posts since then that have mentioned them make me really happy. I enjoy playing about a fifty-fifty mix of male and female characters, and really like it when I can have a completely different physical appearance, like in LotRO where I can play a hobbit or dwarf. 

One of my male friends was in a LotRO kinship where everyone had to play an opposite-gender character, in fact. So all snarkiness aside, plenty of men don't just play female toons so they can stare at her rear.


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## Devor

saellys said:


> I read a figure last night (in an actual paper magazine article, or else I would link it) that said that even after games with female protagonists get greenlighted, they receive just 40% of the marketing money male-led games get. How in the world are games with woman protagonists supposed to reach the maximum audience if, even after they're produced, they have to get by with less than half of the marketing potential?



I don't know your source, and I don't come by a lot of gaming statistics, but my first impression is that 40% seems high, and I wonder if it isolates other factors, like new brands vs. established brands, or genre.  That is, a lot of games may be all male, but they're established brands, which might throw off the numbers (that women aren't the leads in established brands would be a slightly different problem than to blame the marketing budgets). If a lot of female leads are in games that are based on movies, they might rely on the movie to promote the brand and skew the numbers further.

Marketing budgets - if we're talking about advertising - also get over-emphasized and mostly make their impact in the short-run. Promotions get a game to sell the first week or two, but it's reviews and buzz that get people to buy it later on. I find it hard to accept that a good game with female leads just won't do well because of a marketing budget.

Then there's another thing: The "bar" a game has to meet might not be a comparison to other games.  A game with a female lead, to get a sequel, just needs to do _better than expected_ to show game designers the potential and to grab a bigger corresponding budget in the sequel.  The budgeting, even the development budget, is an issue that a game can get past in the long run.

Honestly, I don't mean to say all that much. I only mean that the industry isn't necessarily acting in a way that's counter to the way they'd be expected to act based on market forces.

If you want to see more games target women, and to do so by incorporating female leads, then instead of complaining and demonizing, the solution is to find ways to change the market forces:  Find the games which do the things you like, and get more people to play them.


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## Feo Takahari

The likely source of the statistic.



Devor said:


> Marketing budgets - if we're talking about advertising - also get over-emphasized and mostly make their impact in the short-run. Promotions get a game to sell the first week or two, but it's reviews and buzz that get people to buy it later on. I find it hard to accept that a good game with female leads just won't do well because of a marketing budget.



And how exactly is a game that no one's heard of going to get any buzz? (_Beyond Good and Evil_ is the quintessential example here--it's a cult classic, but not enough people heard of it for it to make much money at the initial time of release.)


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## saellys

Devor said:


> If you want to see more games target women, and to do so by incorporating female leads, then instead of complaining and demonizing, the solution is to find ways to change the market forces:  Find the games which do the things you like, and get more people to play them.



As I mentioned earlier, I don't want to see more games target a female audience by incorporating female leads. I just want to see them incorporating female leads. No ulterior motives--just more games with girls carrying them. 

I get the "stop complaining and do something about it" admonishment a lot in these situations, so I want to make something really clear to you. I do spread the word about the games I love to everyone I know. Every single girl gamer I know does this, because we already know that's the only way underpromoted games get any support, and when we find one that truly Does It Right, we want other girl gamers to have the same fabulous experience we did. It's how I found out about _Gone Home_ (woohoo, this week!) in the first place. It's not an either/or situation. 

When I point out things that are broken, like how the industry treats female led games, or how I bought _Torchlight_ because it had fabulous reviews and then found out that my only option for a female playable character involves a leather bikini, and my first armor upgrade covers her midriff but the second bares it again, that is not demonizing, or setting back progress, or in any way hindering my evangelism of games that do things right. It's pointing out things that are broken. 

It may irritate you and everyone else who thinks the status quo is a-okay (which is what you're saying when you tell me the creative choices of the gaming industry correspond to the market forces, because that is not an argument to support preserving everything as-is at an institutional level that I've seen literally a hundred times or anything), but fortunately it doesn't mean I have to stop pointing it out.


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## Steerpike

saellys said:


> It may irritate you and everyone else who thinks the status quo is a-okay (which is what you're saying when you tell me the creative choices of the gaming industry correspond to the market forces, because that is not an argument I've seen literally a hundred times or anything), but fortunately it doesn't mean I have to stop pointing it out.



The general response is often "You're criticizing something I like, and therefore I'm going to be defensive whether you have a point or not."

It's like sports teams. I like the Raiders. They've sucked in recent years. If someone talks about how they suck, I might defend them, but deep down I know they do suck


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## Mindfire

I think what Devor was trying to say is that these companies aren't motivated by any guiding philosophy or a vague desire to put down women. They're motivated by greed, pure and simple. They want to make money. And you can only ever reasonably expect them to do what they think will make them money. The fact of the matter is they're not going to change the status quo because people, even a large number of people, say it's the right thing to do. They don't care. Because the status quo is what's raking in the dollars. If you want them to change the status quo, it needs to be profitable for them to do so. I.e. the status quo has to stop making money, and the changes you want made have to be proven more profitable. I don't think Devor wants to "preserve the status quo". He's just telling you why it is what it is. And to that extent, I agree with him. You have about jack squat chance of influencing the directions of mega-corporations directly. But that doesn't mean your complaining is _entirely_ in vain. If you and others like you can "convert" enough people to your perspective and convince them to forego video games that fail your standards while buying those that meet them, you can become the sort of market force that _does_ get the attentions of corporations... eventually.

So really, it's not the corporations you should be worried about contending with. It's the fanbase that buys the games. As far as changing that goes, you have two options: either you can try to "assimilate" as many people already within the fanbase as possible, or you can try to bring people who are already pre-disposed to agree with you into the fanbase from outside it. Either way there's bound to be tons of internet flamewars, but I think the latter might be a more successful approach. There's already an influx of so-called "casuals" and new gamers changing the state of the industry. (The Xbox One, for all the hoopla surrounding it, is evidence that the big corporations are looking to expand their demographic appeal, which bodes well for you.) All you have to do is see that a large number of this target audience agrees with you strongly enough to stick to principle instead of just buying the hot new releases anyway.


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## Devor

Steerpike said:


> The general response is often "You're criticizing something I like, and therefore I'm going to be defensive whether you have a point or not."



So, you're saying it couldn't possibly just be a difference of opinion?  That's absurd.


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## Steerpike

Devor said:


> So, you're saying it couldn't possibly just be a difference of opinion?  That's absurd.



You may not have noticed the word 'often,' Devor, but it has a meaning. When I post on a writing site I anticipate a certain facility in both the reading and writing of the written word. If you don't bring that to the table, maybe my posts aren't for you.


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## A. E. Lowan

Now, you two boys better not make me pull over this website!  Keep it up and we're not stopping at McDonalds for ice cream cones on the way home.  *stern face*


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## Devor

saellys said:


> It may irritate you and everyone else who thinks the status quo is a-okay (which is what you're saying when you tell me the creative choices of the gaming industry correspond to the market forces, because that is not an argument to support preserving everything as-is at an institutional level that I've seen literally a hundred times or anything), but fortunately it doesn't mean I have to stop pointing it out.



There are a great many people who would say that the game industry - or any other industry - should do some really crazy stuff. I've heard it. At least if they're listening to market pressure, large varieties of games will occur.

I don't want them to listen to people like you and me complaining about things. I want them listening to market pressures.

This might be surprising, but I've been trying to help you. If you're talking about game companies and publishing companies being jackasses, you're not going to get the large swath of people who don't see it that way to agree with you. It's a bad message to push, and not because people are jerks to ignore it.

If you want to change market pressures, you'll do better by dropping some of the negative messaging. From a PR-perspective, it makes your movement look like it's chasing ghosts.


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## Devor

Steerpike said:


> You may not have noticed the word 'often,' Devor, but it has a meaning. When I post on a writing site I anticipate a certain facility in both the reading and writing of the written word. If you don't bring that to the table, maybe my posts aren't for you.



I did notice the word often. I also noticed the fallacious attack. Why does it become necessary for you to dismiss opposing viewpoints out of hand?


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## Nihal

I still want to see this research stating that "women don't like other women" as a reason to not put women on games. I'm intrigued.


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## Devor

Nihal said:


> I still want to see this research stating that "women don't like other women" as a reason to not put women on games. I'm intrigued.



As a rule I don't like to Google to make a point, and I sometimes fall back on things I recall from Consumer Behavior, even though I don't have those materials on hand anymore. My only point was that female protagonists don't necessarily draw a larger female audience, and I'll stand by that point regardless of how many or how few women sometimes don't like other women.

I also want to reiterate that I didn't characterize it in any way, or intend to make it a very sweeping statement. Some portion of women aren't interested in games or shows or books about other women. That's all I intended to say.


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## Feo Takahari

Since it keeps coming up, I'd like a little more proof of the statement that games companies do what will make a profit. It's a well-known and well-documented failure in Hollywood (discussed at length by Moviebob, among others) that movie producers often don't do what will make a profit, but what they can make excuses for if it doesn't make a profit. ("Movie A had all these traits and made a lot of money. Movie B had the same traits, so I don't know why it didn't make as much money. Therefore, I should be allowed to keep my job.") At least some companies, most obviously Activision, put out their games in ways that would seem to match the I-should-keep-my-job pattern. (For instance, I don't know of anyone high-level being fired when Activision milked the Guitar Hero brand so much and so thoroughly that people actually stopped buying it and the franchise died.)

This might sound a little petty, but it determines the real reason there aren't many high-selling games with female protagonists. If the problem is genuinely that the masses aren't willing to buy diverse games, then this can only change if the audience changes. If the problem is that female protagonists don't fit the I-can-keep-my-job checklist, then the fix needs to come from within the industry.

(To give a little more support for this: _The Last of Us_, while in what's typically considered a "guy" genre, was also intended to be a game women would buy. The devs had to specifically ask for women to be included in the focus tests, because the folks arranging the test just assumed men were the only target audience.)


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## Steerpike

Feo Takahari said:


> . If the problem is genuinely that the masses aren't willing to buy diverse games, then this can only change if the audience changes. If the problem is that female protagonists don't fit the I-can-keep-my-job checklist, then the fix needs to come from within the industry.



I think it is more of the latter.


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## Sheilawisz

This thread has been putting people against each other for too long. The discussions go off topic very fast, the same topics are covered over and over again and, honestly, the thread should be dead and forgotten by now but people insist on bringing it back to life.

_Women in Fantasy_ has completed its original purpose. I am locking the thread now.


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