# Political Correctness in Fantasy



## Amanita (Dec 30, 2011)

Browsing through the thread about conflict in forums, I've been reminded of a few hot discussions happening over at the NaNoWriMo-forums this year. The subjects where political correctness especially towards various ethnic groups and sexual orientations. 
The essence of those discussions seemed to be that a fantasy cast has to include all groups relevant in an an US city or it's "discrimnation via exclusion." This is fine in a fantasy story set in a modern day American city but in my opinion it makes no sense at all in an invented world. For me, it's important that invented cultures make sense within the context of the story. To have a society like it exists in the USA make sense in an invented world, many factors come into, you probably know better what they are than I do. There's no reason whatsoever that the relationship between people of different skin colour has to be the same it is in our own world. And yet, if you talk about having something else, accusations of being "colour-blind" and so on are being made. 

At the moment, I'm having different ethnic groups in my own world, but I'm considering to change that, because I'm worried about offending someone, which seems to be happening very easily, at least to the people using the NaNo-forums. 
Even the number of terms for people of skin tone other than white that are deemed offensive there is astonishing. In some cases, I really wouldn't have expected this, so if I'm unsing any offensive term, please tell, but don't be offended, I didn't mean it to be. 
On the other hand, where homosexuals are concerned terms like "quiltbag" which I would have seen as a slur seem to be accepted. Not knowing homosexuals, transsexuals and so on myself, I'm not really interested in putting much time into the research necessary to include one of them as a main character in a realistic and inoffensive fashion even though _this isn't relevant to the plot at all_. In this case, I think it's better for everyone involved if people with acutal experience describe these feelings and there's no need to demand everyone else to do it as has been done by the NaNos. 

Now I'm treading into even more dangerous territory: What's your opinion on fantasy cultures who display a certain amount of racism and still aren't being viewed as completely evil? In the case of misogynism, this seems to be widely accepted, fantasy societes without it are much rarer than those where it exists as if this were how things should be. Racism seems to be a different matter though. 
I have a tendency of simply lettting cultures with different values and characters with different opinions stand side by side without giving authoral moral judgement on their beliefs. Two of my countries forbid or strictly limit immigration, one of them doesn't accept foreigners as citizens at all, the other only when rather harsh conditions are being met. They don't direct this against certain skin tones though, but against everyone who isn't one of them. In another country, ethnicity doesn't matter at all, everyone is being judged by their own behaviour. (Or by the amount of money they own or make...)
Would you see this as a problem and how are you dealing with it yourselves?


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## TWErvin2 (Dec 30, 2011)

You're not going to be able to please everybody no matter what you include or exclude from your works.

I just write the story I want to tell. A good story will find an audience. 

Your content may differ from work to work depending on the theme(s) or plotline(s), or the characters. I personally wouldn't base what I wrote on what some folks said, promoted, complained about on a NaNoWriMo forum if it's not something that interests you or your anticiapted audience. 

There is such broad diversity out there based on, if nothing else, the sheer number of authors and series and novels and worlds created that everyone should be able to find a place where their writing fits and every reader should be able to find what they're looking for, and avoid what they dislike or feel uncomfortable with. 

There's plenty of room for works that foucs on being politically correct and for those that don't have that as their focus.

That's my two cents.


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## Telcontar (Dec 30, 2011)

I have a deep and abiding dislike for political correctness. Also, saying that any author must include this or that group in an invented world is absolutely stupid. For one, it's an invented world - we have every right to include whatever we wish. Second, there are an infinite number of subdivisions to these various groups and ethnicity and orientations. Impossible to 'include' them all.

I think racism is a likely trait for most early cultures, if they bear any resemblance at all to humans. It's an outgrowth of evolutionary elitism - you want your own species to survive. After that, your race. After that, further divisions, right down to family and self. Racism is outmoded and ugly in the modern world, because we should be able to think about such base instincts - that doesn't mean it wouldn't occur in the relatively early societies depicted in most fantasy. I have a story where many cultures portray deep and institutionalized racism. Neither one is "evil." They're just human.

If for some weird reason somebody is offended by that, I quite simply don't care.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Dec 30, 2011)

Political correctness is what tells us it's not okay to call black people "ni*****". When it goes wrong is when someone from group A says that you're not allowed to call group B "C", even if the members of group B don't care. You can tell it's gone overboard when the phrase, "Someone might get offended" is uttered, even if nobody has actually gotten offended yet.

In general, though, if someone tells you that a term is offensive to them, how much responsibility do you bear not to use that term? It's not so clear-cut as to say "political correctness is bad." Nobody's going to argue about the n-word, but if a guy says to you that he doesn't want to be called a "man," because that term offends him, and he wants to only be referred to as a "male," would you do it? (Assume for the moment that he's being sincere and it's not some kind of game, ploy, or prank.) It'd be easy to ignore just one dude asking that. What if ten guys ask the same thing? A thousand? A million? It becomes a movement? How many people have to be offended by a term before you bear some moral responsibility to listen to what they ask?


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## sashamerideth (Dec 30, 2011)

I think that political incorrectness belongs in certain fantasy settings, especially with a medieval setting. The cultures and social aspects are just different than today.

Sent from my Blade using Forum Runner


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## Steerpike (Dec 30, 2011)

I don't like political correctness in literature. Be true to your story, and don't give political correctness much thought.


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## Kit (Dec 30, 2011)

In a story, if one character calls another character a N_____, that's part of the story. If the AUTHOR calls a character a N____ (as in "Then the N_____ walked across the street" when this is being presented as narration, as opposed to being presented as evesdropping on a character's thoughts) that's when I would get offended.

Everybody's got the right to their opinions, including the belief that people are N____s.... but if it annoys me enough, I will not want to read that person's stuff, or recommend it, or spend my money on it.


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## Steerpike (Dec 30, 2011)

Kit said:


> In a story, if one character calls another character a N_____, that's part of the story. If the AUTHOR calls a character a N____ (as in "Then the N_____ walked across the street" when this is being presented as narration, as opposed to being presented as evesdropping on a character's thoughts) that's when I would get offended.



You still have to be able to distinguish the author from the narrator. Just because something isn't presented in dialogue doesn't mean it is the author speaking or presenting an opinion. The narrator might not be a very nice person.


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## Kit (Dec 30, 2011)

That is true, that makes it a little harder to pinpoint sometimes. The narrator, though, is still a *character*.


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## Steerpike (Dec 30, 2011)

Kit said:


> That is true, that makes it a little harder to pinpoint sometimes. The narrator, though, is still a *character*.



True. I suppose I'd be hesitant to assume at any time that something presented in a work of fiction, even in narration, is necessarily reflecting the viewpoint of the author.


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## Aegrus (Dec 30, 2011)

I don't like offensive writing when it attacks my group- but that's fine.  I'll simply stop reading if I'm offended.  Many books are given much more depth if the characters have rich, varied, and even politically incorrect qualities.  So I say, just ignore political correctness.  

However, as stated above, a narrator instead of a character being politically incorrect doesn't have much of a point, so I personally will avoid that.


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## Steerpike (Dec 30, 2011)

Aegrus said:


> However, as stated above, a narrator instead of a character being politically incorrect doesn't have much of a point, so I personally will avoid that.



I disagree with this as well. A narrator being politically incorrect doesn't have a point? Why not? Can you elaborate on that?


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## myrddin173 (Dec 30, 2011)

This reminds me of a "discussion" a ran across several years ago.  It was on the IMDb forums for the Lord of the Rings movie and one individual was slamming them because their were no members of minorities among the cast.  Which is true the cast is "white" but it wouldn't have made sense with, as he wanted, "a black Aragorn and an Oriental* Gandalf" because the story is apart of a fake mythology for _Britain_.  The discussion went on to say how nobody cares about an all-black cast but an all-white cast causes people to protest.

I think Political Correctness is okay to an extent but people have a tendency of taking it to far.  In stories, the _story _should always come first.


*It was also lost on him that for a person upset about how the absence of minorities "Oriental" was probably not the best choice of word.


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## Aegrus (Dec 30, 2011)

Steerpike said:


> I disagree with this as well. A narrator being politically incorrect doesn't have a point? Why not? Can you elaborate on that?



I should have been more specific.  If the narrator is not a character (such as a third person omniscient narrator, aka a disembodied voice) I think that making them politically incorrect would be distracting rather than realistic.


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## Aegrus (Dec 30, 2011)

For example, "The knight rode in silence" is more to the point and meaningful than "The n***er rode in silence."

--Sorry about splitting this into two posts, my mind blanked and I forgot that there was an edit button until now. . .


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## Legendary Sidekick (Dec 31, 2011)

myrddin173 said:


> "Oriental" was probably not the best choice of word.


My Oriental wife might have been offended by this person, and her Oriental friend who's visiting might even be so offended she'd move back the the Orient. My kids are only 50% Oriental, so they probably would only be half-offended.




In my story, which takes place on two planets, the people on the planet Pyros are mostly white; the reader eventually meets some black people. The people from Cryos are described as having Asian features (though I never use the word Asian--or Oriental).

I think, for about 30 seconds, I wondered how people would take it that I have "Asians" on one planet and white guys on the other. Then I realized that I can easily shut up anyone who calls me a bigot for this by flashing a wedding photo.

My reason for writing the races this way is inspired from having grown up in rural U.S., then having experienced "the city life" in Hong Kong. It was really like living in two different worlds for me!

PC has no effect on my decisions, though of course, I don't go out of my way to offend.


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## ThinkerX (Dec 31, 2011)

I could get in a lot of trouble here by accident...

...my stories are mostly set in or at the fringes of a large quasi totalitarian, quasi roman type empire, much of whose leadership has little but contempt for their own subjects (they're actually getting ticked off because some of those 'subjects' are being upgraded to 'citizens').  Most of the imperials have a very low opinion of pretty much all other races - goblins are 'vilekin' that need to be exterminated on sight (or if you're feeling really generous, enslaved for life).  Elves will dazzle you with their magic and rob you blind.  The imperials have a major disregard for other humans as well - the very pale skinned, black haired kitrineese (conquored about a century and a half ago) are demon worshipping scum who need to be put in chains at birth and kept there.  The black skinned folks of the jungle to the empires immediate south are 'natural slaves' (only reason said jungle was never incorporated into the empire was because the imperials who stayed there for any length of time tended to die of plague or snakebite or some such). 

Plus, there are more than a few characters wandering around with chips on their shoulders the size of small mountains.


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## mirrorrorrim (Dec 31, 2011)

Something I've learned recently is that when someone truly writes, she can't help baring most of whom she is to those who have the ability to read it. Gifted authors, knowingly or not, end up leaving a lot of themselves in the pages they write.

While your characters may not be aware of racism, you are, and, like it or not, that is sure to show up in your writing, regardless of whether you mean it to or not.

With that said, it's up to you whether to make it a point of your story or not to. The fact that you're dealing with the issue of immigration suggests that you intend it to be at least passingly relevent, and so your views are sure to come out. So, are you or aren't you a racist? If you aren't, be confident that your writing will reflect that. Good characters do bad things, and bad characters do good things–that's part of life, and part of any tale worth writing. In actual history, there were lots of good people who _were_ racist, and sexist, anti-religious, anti-intellectual, anti-unintellectual, and every other manifestation of prejudice. Every person has pride within her, and prejudice is one of its most common manifestations. 

To tell a good fantasy story, you don't need to have your heroes overcome all of their shortcomings, or even most of them. As long as you don't try to hide or over-justify them, most readers won't assume you condone everything you write, if you don't.

_Writers,_ on the other hand, are often the most prejudiced of all, especially in regard to one another.  I wouldn't worry to much about what they say. Or what I do, either, since I also am a writer.


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## mythique890 (Jan 1, 2012)

Mirror, have you ever seen the quote in my signature?  You pretty much summed it up in your post. 

While I think concern for the feelings of others is a good trait to have and try never to offend if I can help it, I think the obsession with being PC in this country (can't speak for others) has gone a bit overboard.  I think it's silly to call someone out for being racist because a certain race doesn't appear in their book.  I live in an area where 90% of the population is white, 8% is Hispanic and a whopping 0.33% is black.  Why would a native of this area think to include a black character in a story when they don't know anyone black IRL?  People write about what they have experience with.  That's why I think we need a mass migration of writers _out_ of NYC, because I'm really getting tired of books and movies being set in the same place over and over and over again.  Tangent. 

I would expect racism in a made-up fantasy world, especially since most settings are along the lines of "long ago" when that kind of thing was more commonplace.  I would be interested to see someone write a fantasy society where misandry was the norm.  What on earth would that be like? 

Personally, I write what I know, meaning so far most of my characters are white, and the ones that aren't white are Latin American or Polynesian.


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## mirrorrorrim (Jan 1, 2012)

mythique890 said:


> Mirror, have you ever seen the quote in my signature?  You pretty much summed it up in your post.
> 
> While I think concern for the feelings of others is a good trait to have and try never to offend if I can help it, I think the obsession with being PC in this country (can't speak for others) has gone a bit overboard.  I think it's silly to call someone out for being racist because a certain race doesn't appear in their book.  I live in an area where 90% of the population is white, 8% is Hispanic and a whopping 0.33% is black.  Why would a native of this area think to include a black character in a story when they don't know anyone black IRL?  People write about what they have experience with.  That's why I think we need a mass migration of writers _out_ of NYC, because I'm really getting tired of books and movies being set in the same place over and over and over again.  Tangent.
> 
> ...



No, I hadn't! I love Orson Scott Card, though, so I'm not surprised he said it first (and a lot better). 

And I belong to the same religion he does [can I say that here?], so it's always been interesting to me to see how his interpretations of some of our beliefs show up in his works, especially when they appear to do so unintentionally, or when they differ widely from my own interpretations.

I think that quote is what scares me most about ever being published: having my whole self out there for anyone to see or judge. I've gotten in trouble for my writing before, so I already know not everyone is going to appreciate or agree with everything I write.

On the other hand, though, that's also one of the things I would be most excited about.

But, all of that is a long way off, and half of this post (okay, probably closer to all of it) is _completely_ unrelated to the thread topic, so, instead of going on, I'll respond to the bottom part of your post! 

I think it's important to write what you know. Writing a black character without understanding what that means is, in my opinion, much more insulting than not writing one at all. Now, if you're writing in a world where no one cares about or notices skin color, that's a different matter entirely, because then there is no difference in that character's perspective. But my guess is that most of us aren't writing in those kinds of worlds.

I feel the same is true for homosexuals, members of the opposite gender, and any other group that defines itself by an unique characteristic.

This doesn't mean you can only write the exact person you are, of course. You just have to look, feel, and listen enough to have empathy for the group you are trying to write for; for different people, that entails different things.

And, of course, it's important to understand that not all members of a group are the same. The majority may deal with the same types of feelings, but how they react to them—if they do at all—will vary drastically from person to person. And, just as importantly, many members of a particular group may not consider that membership a defining characteristic at all.

That's how I feel, anyway.


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## Ghost (Jan 1, 2012)

Amanita said:


> The essence of those discussions seemed to be that a fantasy cast has to include all groups relevant in an an US city or it's "discrimnation via exclusion."



I don't write about Mormons, transvestites, 98-year-olds, Vietnamese, or people with Restless Leg Syndrome. That doesn't mean I'm discriminating. It's just not relevant. Even when a city or country has wide demographics, it's not pertinent to mention each group in every book. You have to go with what makes sense for the world you've created _and_ what makes sense to reveal the story. People who tell you to turn your culture into a beautiful human rainbow are probably well-intentioned but very misguided.



Amanita said:


> Not knowing homosexuals, transsexuals and so on myself, I'm not really interested in putting much time into the research necessary to include one of them as a main character in a realistic and inoffensive fashion even though _this isn't relevant to the plot at all_. In this case, I think it's better for everyone involved if people with acutal experience describe these feelings and there's no need to demand everyone else to do it as has been done by the NaNos.





mirrorrorrim said:


> I think it's important to write what you know. Writing a black character without understanding what that means is, in my opinion, much more insulting than not writing one at all. Now, if you're writing in a world where no one cares about or notices skin color, that's a different matter entirely, because then there is no difference in that character's perspective. But my guess is that most of us aren't writing in those kinds of worlds.
> 
> I feel the same is true for homosexuals, members of the opposite gender, and any other group that defines itself by an unique characteristic.



I'd never let the lack of "membership" into a group stop me from writing characters from those groups. The Black Experience (which is such a bullshit way to describe being black anyway) doesn't mean a damn thing in a fantasy novel set in a made up world. It's not bound to the same set of problems that exist in our world. The ability to see people as people, under all the stigmas and labels, is what's important. That's probably why elves get on my nerves so much. In many stories, elves are basically clones of the same person. If you're not interested in other races or sexualities, fine. If you _are_ interested, you don't need to do the equivalent of donning a fat-suit to go undercover. I think common sense and understanding are good enough. Don't turn people into representatives for their groups. Things like making a lesbian act the way you think lesbians should act or viewing her actions through the lens of her sexuality _before_ considering the effect her personality are annoying. Characters should do more than wear a badge that reads "lesbian" or "the black guy."

I don't understand applying the "write what you know" adage this way. Why write fantasy at all if you can't imagine other experiences?

I'm not a man, a Jew, or a noble, but my characters might be. If the entire book is related to a part of the character's identity, like skin color, take a little more care. Otherwise, a book with black characters *doesn't* have to revolve around their skin. Mentioning offhand that a character or group are dark skinned doesn't change the whole story unless skin color was important in the first place.



Amanita said:


> What's your opinion on fantasy cultures who display a certain amount of racism and still aren't being viewed as completely evil? [...] Would you see this as a problem and how are you dealing with it yourselves?



Most of my stories center on one culture and are set in lower tech worlds with less communication and global awareness. So, yeah, there's bound to be prejudices. It's not a big deal. So much of it is a product of ignorance and fear. People are more likely to distrust or fear strangers in isolated communities, and I imagine they're more likely to see themselves as the best kind of people if their society is homogenous. It doesn't make a person evil or even stupid. When everyone in your life thinks that way, it's normal. It's when authors try to prove the culture is inherently better that it becomes a problem. Or when authors try to correct their characters' thinking to a modern Western way. It's okay to let them be. I love my country, but I'm not going to pretend it's perfect. I figure turning a blind eye to prejudices big or small doesn't show how people really behave. I'm not interested in utopian societies, so it's no loss to me.

Just as characters do, societies need their flaws. Worrying about offending people is a big waste of time.



myrddin173 said:


> Which is true the cast is "white" but it wouldn't have made sense with, as he wanted, "a black Aragorn and an Oriental* Gandalf" because the story is apart of a fake mythology for _Britain_.



Yeah, that sort of thinking is going too far (and sounds trollish to boot), however, it'd be nice if Hollywood was more accepting of minorities in major roles where the background isn't important. If a script calls for a person of color, they sometimes cast a white person anyway.

At least Boromir wasn't the black one. I can imagine all the jokes about him trying to steal the ring.


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## ascanius (Jan 1, 2012)

Sorry if this is a bit chaotic, just got back from a News year parry t.  I Did not read the entire thread, but saw the thread title and read the first post and wanted to say something.  

Havingr read some of George Orwell's essays I have the strong belief that Political correctness is something that should be acoided at all times, it is the bane of free though and individuality and a scourge on human intelligence forcing a single opinion based on "group think" and a very basic form of "double talk."  

It is strange to note that writing something that challenges the existing norm is considered 'noble, right, just, politically correct, and whatever name one wishes to place on the subject.  However when one writes anything that challanges these same opinions that are being pushed one is considered racist, homophobic, sexist, insensitive, evil, or whatever.  Often this can be the case but just because these topics are are relevant in a text that do not follow social norms the other is viewed as any number of these derogatory terms.  This is way of thinking is intrinsically retarded.  


No one should worry about political correctness when writing anything.  Quality and substance is sacrificed in any writing where political correctness is involved because the author is restricted to appease social norms.  I am sure many would not appreciate any form of government dictating the content one is allowed to include in any text.  Then why so is political correctness allowed to dictate how and what we write?


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## Amanita (Jan 1, 2012)

Thank you for responding in so many different but still polite ways.
I'm glad to see that the opinions of most NaNoWriMo-members posting in such threads obviously don't represent the opinions of the majority of Americans. If some of you who've used this forum have taken a look at the thread about homosexual characters (and various others about race) they'll know what I mean and everyone else can, if you want to. 
I don't think I'm being racist myself, even though others might think differently, but I strongly believe that immigrants should respect the laws and culture of the country they're going to and learn the language. I'm also put off by legal decisions that give lighter sentences to people from a different cultural background because the crime wouldn't be judged so harshly in their own culture. (So-called honour-killings not being considered murder for example.) This kind of thing is racist towards both sides involved in my opinion.

Besides that I think of freedom of speech and don't think that any opinion should be banned competely as long as it doesn't directly lead to crimes. If someone writes a book stating that people with grey eyes are ugly, they can do so, but if they're demanding that the readers should round up and kill all the grey-eyed people it's not. It's part of a free society that such things are allowed to exist and are being disputed if they're deemed important enough to talk about them at all. 

Something I'd always try to stay clear of in an invented world is the use of real-life insults such as the above-mentione N-word. It's not always easy though. I was quite shocked  when reading a Newspaper article which stated that the term "Mudblood" is actually used by Palestinians against Jews. In Harry Potter, its use was described as something unambigiously bad, but many fans are throwing it around very lightly. Which isn't something JKR is to be blamed for though, I don't really get why people have to refer to one of the main characters by a term that is established as the worst possible insult in the book itself. 
This is a an example of how the author's intention doesn't always match the readers reaction.


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## Devor (Jan 1, 2012)

Honestly, I think a "token" character, especially a token character done badly, is more offensive than leaving out that element of diversity.  And nothing screams token to me more than characters who wouldn't even exist in their cultural surroundings, and are forced into the work just for the sake of political correctness.

Political Correctness is one of those things which, in my opinion, has passed the point of diminishing marginal returns and has started to yield negative results, even for its own purposes.


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## mirrorrorrim (Jan 1, 2012)

Ouroboros said:


> I'd never let the lack of "membership" into a group stop me from writing characters from those groups. The Black Experience (which is such a bullshit way to describe being black anyway) doesn't mean a damn thing in a fantasy novel set in a made up world. It's not bound to the same set of problems that exist in our world. The ability to see people as people, under all the stigmas and labels, is what's important. That's probably why elves get on my nerves so much. In many stories, elves are basically clones of the same person. If you're not interested in other races or sexualities, fine. If you _are_ interested, you don't need to do the equivalent of donning a fat-suit to go undercover. I think common sense and understanding are good enough. Don't turn people into representatives for their groups. Things like making a lesbian act the way you think lesbians should act or viewing her actions through the lens of her sexuality _before_ considering the effect her personality are annoying. Characters should do more than wear a badge that reads "lesbian" or "the black guy."
> 
> I don't understand applying the "write what you know" adage this way. Why write fantasy at all if you can't imagine other experiences?
> 
> I'm not a man, a Jew, or a noble, but my characters might be. If the entire book is related to a part of the character's identity, like skin color, take a little more care. Otherwise, a book with black characters *doesn't* have to revolve around their skin. Mentioning offhand that a character or group are dark skinned doesn't change the whole story unless skin color was important in the first place.


I don't think I represented my ideas as well as I was trying to in my previous post. I agree entirely that you don't have to be a member of a certain group to write as one–you just have to be able to empathize with them. For you, simply considering their situation might be enough. For others, it may help to know several people from the group they're writing. For others, they may never be able to empathize, no matter how much they study or get to know the group they're looking into. Personally, I fall somewhere in between the extremes. I've never experienced persecution because of the groups I belong to (individually is another matter, but that's a different issue), so for me it's been necessary to find people who have–or those who believe they have (I believe I've known both)–to be able to write that perspective, and I'm still not great at it. It's also helped me to know people who do discriminate, in order to write their perspective better, as well. Racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice can definitely still be found.

I also agree that giving someone brown skin is something completely different than writing a "black" character, and doing one doesn't have to relate in any way to the other. Black culture in the United States is tied directly to their cultural heritage of first slavery, and later inequality, and has nothing to do with anything so superficial as skin tone, except in how it related to those two issues. I feel, given the right fantasy culture, a "black" character could have any skin color or ethnicity, so long as their group heritage and history followed the same pattern. There are many historical groups with strong parallels, and in many ways a Qing-era woman in China is not so different than a Reconstruction black man in the southern United States. If you can empathize with one, I don't feel it requires much more effort (if any) to empathize with the other.

I also agree that that a person's membership in a group should only be as important as the character himself makes it. For some homosexuals I know, their sexual orientation _is_ the biggest thing they use to define themselves as a person, so if I were to write a character like them, it would need to be for that character, as well. That doesn't mean they act stereotypically–quite the opposite, in fact. They'll often consciously try to diminish traits about themselves that would be identified as "gay," especially around people who aren't aware of their sexual orientation. For other homosexuals, meanwhile, that's just a small part of who they are, and if I were to write a character like them, it would play a much smaller role.

Applying this to fantasy, in many stories, for elves, being "elven" is a big part of the culture they live in, so even if not elves are exactly the same, they may have societal pressure to be. Part of what will define an elven character is how she reacts to those pressures. Does she rebel against them? Does she privately disagree, but does she still live her life in the manner she's expected to, at least openly? Has she even thought that there might be another way of viewing herself, or are her society's views so much a part of her that she doesn't even realize they exist? When she's finally confronted with things that are more true, can she accept them, or does she decide to blind herself to everything but what she knows?

I know many disagree, but, especially in fantasy, I feel if your different races _aren't_ going to have unique cultures and identities, then there's little point in calling any attention to them in the first place, or, for mystical races like elves, for having them at all.

I hope this post was able to make my position a little more clear than the previous one.


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## Ziggy (Jan 3, 2012)

There is no such thing as "politically incorrect" in fiction, and especially not in fantasy. Just write a good story.


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## OrionDarkwood (Jan 5, 2012)

Amanita,

IMHO I would not change my story for political correctness. If the humans hate dark elves and call them pointed ear darkies then let them. If a society keeps slaves from its defeated foes so what. Story is paramount, your always going to have people hate what you write or hate that its not what I call happy elf land. I for one prefer my reading to be gritty to have heroes with personality flaws, skeletons in the closet and doing evil for the greater good.

In the end we can all give advice but its your choice what path to follow.


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## Ice Spider (Jan 6, 2012)

One of the joys of world building to me is creating societies with morality quite alien to my own. Sometimes that can include more intense racism than I usually see in my own society. It fascinates me that despite the "immoral" traits we see in our own and other societies, we all ultimately have the same basic feelings and fears deep down. A racist, warmongering oppressor from a corrupt aristocratic class will still probably love his children. That's a theme that comes up in my writing, and it's a theme I feel people need to hear. It's like the ultra-conservative Westerner who believes Islam is a violent and evil religion, and responds by saying we should forcefully deport all Muslims who won't leave their religion (I think Ann Coulter said something like this?). Condemning the "other" in the same way you feel they condemned you makes you just as bad as they are (or worse, if your prejudices against them are not as accurate as you think).

So sure, put political incorrectness in your writing. It's realistic, and so long as the reader recognizes this isn't a good opinion to hold (as most will) it won't be harming anyone. I'd be more careful when writing for children, though.


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## arbiter117 (Jan 7, 2012)

Political incorrectness adds character to a book. People will get upset about anything and everything.

Do what you will with your world, it does not make you intolerant or racist.


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## W.k. Trail (Jan 15, 2012)

I think that if you think about it that much, you're screwed.  I don't write to please demographics, and neither should you - I write to tell a story in an interesting world, and if someone hypothetically got angry because there were no japanese-style people in my story I doubt I'd bother replying to them.


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## Aegrus (Jan 16, 2012)

Ice Spider said:


> One of the joys of world building to me is creating societies with morality quite alien to my own. Sometimes that can include more intense racism than I usually see in my own society. It fascinates me that despite the "immoral" traits we see in our own and other societies, we all ultimately have the same basic feelings and fears deep down. A racist, warmongering oppressor from a corrupt aristocratic class will still probably love his children. That's a theme that comes up in my writing, and it's a theme I feel people need to hear. It's like the ultra-conservative Westerner who believes Islam is a violent and evil religion, and responds by saying we should forcefully deport all Muslims who won't leave their religion (I think Ann Coulter said something like this?). Condemning the "other" in the same way you feel they condemned you makes you just as bad as they are (or worse, if your prejudices against them are not as accurate as you think).
> 
> So sure, put political incorrectness in your writing. It's realistic, and so long as the reader recognizes this isn't a good opinion to hold (as most will) it won't be harming anyone. I'd be more careful when writing for children, though.



Well said.  I especially agree when you say that immoral people would still possess values (such as love for their children) which most of us share.  Too often, in my opinion, people make antagonists who reject every single ideal of their host society.  That just isn't realistic for a human character. "Evil" people are far more often motivated by a need (justified or not) to protect what they fear to lose rather than by simple hatred of the world.  

And yes, Ann Coulter has said a lot of things like that.


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## grahamguitarman (Jan 16, 2012)

My world has a hermaphroditic race of beings (male and female at the same time, ie posessing both sets of organs)  I'm hetero myself, but I'm not afraid to write about alternative sexualities, or in this case alternative races.  I kinda like the idea that with this race there is no concept of male or female gay or straight, anyone can give birth, and there are no gender roles.  

Yet even though my best friend in the whole world is black I don't as yet have any blacks in my stories (though there is a race of brown skinned people with wings - sort of winged amazon natives).  Not because of any concsious decision on my part, I just havn't come up with any ideas for a black race yet and will not go out of my way to create one unless it seems right for the story

I don't care what the PC Brigade think, I don't write for them any more than I write for people who are racist or homophobic.  I create worlds that are completely separate from ours and make no attempt to link what I write with our planet - so why should I make my cultures follow the rules and moralities of this world!  At the end of the day, this is MY imagination so who are the PC brigade to tell me what to imagine?

Oh and as for the idea that a novel should contain a typical New York mix of people, I find that in itself a bit insulting.  I live in Yorkshire, England, why the hell should I model anything I write on a foreign city I've never visited and have no interest in visiting!  Sounds to me like the typical American imperialism that thinks Americans are the most important people in the world!  (you can count on me to find a way of turning the PC brigade arguments against themselves he he)


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## Anders Ã„mting (Jan 16, 2012)

I'm not terribly interested in political correctness, nor am I interested in political opinions period. 

I'm interested in _people, _and cultures, and what makes sense for a person to think and feel in a certain context. I'm interested in questions like: "Can I construct a social order that is really into slavery, without necessarily making them out to be bad guys?" or "How religious can I make these characters and still portray them as having common sense?" or "Do these people actually care about skin color or sexual orientation at all? And if so, _why? _And to exactly what degree?" 

See, if should decide to include a racist or a homophobe in my story, for whatever reason, I'm probably not going to portray that person to be correct in his or her opinion. But I _will _portray that person as an _actual person_, not some sort of inhuman scarecrow.


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## Kit (Jan 16, 2012)

The race of my MC's never occurred to me until this thread. I hadn't given much thought to what they look like, because both I and they are much more interested in character/personality than physical traits. Now- just to be contrary- I will probably end up making them non-caucasian.

Interesting follow-up thought: to present that early on, or toss it in casually three books into the series? I wonder if the latter would annoy people; if they would have already built (white) visuals of the characters in their heads and would be rattled by having their assumptions turned on end.


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## Anders Ã„mting (Jan 16, 2012)

My MC's are usually white - most likely because I am white, and it never occurs to me to envision them otherwise. I don't think it's a big thing: It's not like I'm going to expect black authors use caucasian MCs. Our first resort is usually what we are familiar with.

On the other hand, I'm fussy about nationalities. In my current story, I specifically wanted to keep the MC's nationality as vague as possible, as if he could be from virtually any country in the western hemisphere. That made it very tricky to name him, because his name had to sound sufficiently international.


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## sashamerideth (Jan 16, 2012)

I haven't thought about relative ethnicity of my charaters. They are descendants of a multi generational colony space ship. They won't have preserved old ethnicity, but would have new divisions based on new nationality and other factors.

Sent from my Blade using Forum Runner


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## Evilyn (Jan 16, 2012)

I think if you try too hard to please everyone you will end up with a story that sounds bland, in my opinion clashes of cultures, religion and social classes are good bases for some fantasy books. My own fantasy story is quite controversial, for a start it evolves around a religious military order that are trying to eradicate the tribes that will not convert to their religion. I have not written any part of it with the intention to offend or preach, I just sit and write.


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## ascanius (Jan 21, 2012)

Anders Ã„mting said:


> I'm interested in _people, _and cultures, and what makes sense for a person to think and feel in a certain context. I'm interested in questions like: "Can I construct a social order that is really into slavery, without necessarily making them out to be bad guys?" or "How religious can I make these characters and still portray them as having common sense?" or "Do these people actually care about skin color or sexual orientation at all? And if so, _why? _And to exactly what degree?"



You know that slavery never became what we see it as now until around the time of the revolutionary war, or there about, I don't remember exactly.  Prior to that slavery was never based on the color of skin and the belief that they were subhuman.  The Romans and Greeks had slaves, to name a few, and the thing is those slaves could become free and even hold office if they were citizens.  Slaves in that time period retained their identity as a human, unlike what happened with the African slave trade, and the lasting effects we see today.  The difference between these two structures was the viewpoint of the masters.  One viewed slaves as less than human, a dog an animal, based on skin color, the other did not share a similar opinion on slaves and slaves came from any color skin and any location, status, whatever.  so the idea of having a culture that has strong ties to slavery is not at all that far fetched.  What you should really look into though is what happened with the Romans leading to the Marius reforms.  Slaves were used so extensively that the free citizens of Rome were unable to work, this lead to a lot of conflict and how we see the Roman Legions today.
  As to the common sense where it involves religion.  I have never understood why people think they are exclusive.  I have heard people say the pope is stupid, an idiot, fool, and I walk away not willing to waste my time with an actual idiot.  The man can speak more than one language, seven is the conservative number i found online.  The point being that the "common sense" you speak of is taken from the point of view of someone who has no understanding of what they are talking about.  I don't think woman have common sense, but i know that they have their own reasons for doing things that are simply beyond the capacity of my mind.

If you want to play with these ideas you need to understand the idea from both sides of the spectrum.  How does slavery impact those of that culture, how does it impact the slaves, how do the slaves feel, etc.  In the end though it depends on how these ideas are portrayed that will determine if they are made out to be bad guys.


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## Amanita (Jan 22, 2012)

> I don't think woman have common sense but i know that they have their own reasons for doing things that are simply beyond the capacity of my mind


Would you mind explaining what exactly this is supposed to mean?


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## Jabrosky (Jan 23, 2012)

My current WIP is set in ancient Northeast Africa (i.e Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia) and features both good and evil Black characters. There _is_ a White man who's the love interest for the Black female MC, but he's probably the only White character I'll have in the story. Most of my other stories have predominantly "people of color" characters because I've always been interested in non-European cultures and believe that they need more exposure in fantasy. 

One of my favorite settings for stories is ancient Egypt, but that's largely due to my dissatisfaction with most pop-culture portrayals of the Egyptian people. My research has convinced me that most ancient Egyptians were darker-skinned and related to the Africans we call Black than commonly believed, but that's a subject for another thread.

This may sound politically incorrect, but even though I am a White guy, I'm mainly attracted to Black women, so I'm very fond of Black leading ladies who are paired up with White or other non-Black men. In fact my desire to get such a couple out there in the fantasy genre is one of the reasons I'm writing my story to begin with.


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## Ghost (Jan 24, 2012)

Amanita said:


> Would you mind explaining what exactly this is supposed to mean?



After a bit of liberal interpretation, I believe I figured it out. He's saying that "common sense" depends on your perspective and saying someone doesn't have common sense is like admitting ignorance about that person. When someone says the Pope lacks common sense, they're being ignorant about the Pope. ascanius thinks those people are idiots and walks away from them.

By saying women lack common sense, he's admitting he knows absolutely nothing about women. On top of that, ascanius expects people will think he's an idiot and walk away. There are more women than there are Popes. I think we should take that into consideration.

Like I said, it was a liberal interpretation, so I may be a bit off. I wonder if there's some significance to my and Amanita's reaction to ascanius and the thread's topic. Someone with common sense might possibly find humor in it.


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## Reaver (Jan 24, 2012)

Ouroboros said:


> After a bit of liberal interpretation, I believe I figured it out. He's saying that "common sense" depends on your perspective and saying someone doesn't have common sense is like admitting ignorance about that person. When someone says the Pope lacks common sense, they're being ignorant about the Pope. ascanius thinks those people are idiots and walks away from them.
> 
> By saying women lack common sense, he's admitting he knows absolutely nothing about women. On top of that, ascanius expects people will think he's an idiot and walk away. There are more women than there are Popes. I think we should take that into consideration.
> 
> Like I said, it was a liberal interpretation, so I may be a bit off. I wonder if there's some significance to my and Amanita's reaction to ascanius and the thread's topic. Someone with common sense might possibly find humor in it.



Well said, Ouroboros...you and Amanita are correct of course. It's abundantly clear that dear Ascanius has quite a bit to learn about women.  I'm not sure who said it, but I go by the old adage: "Common sense isn't very common."
I for one think that the better half of our species has much more common sense than we men.  As always, this is my humble opinion but if anyone's interested, John Updike's essay, "The Disposable Rocket", will back me up on this. :skull:


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## ascanius (Jan 25, 2012)

Amanita said:


> Would you mind explaining what exactly this is supposed to mean?





Ouroboros said:


> After a bit of liberal interpretation, I believe I figured it out. He's saying that "common sense" depends on your perspective and saying someone doesn't have common sense is like admitting ignorance about that person. When someone says the Pope lacks common sense, they're being ignorant about the Pope. ascanius thinks those people are idiots and walks away from them.
> 
> By saying women lack common sense, he's admitting he knows absolutely nothing about women. On top of that, ascanius expects people will think he's an idiot and walk away. There are more women than there are Popes. I think we should take that into consideration.
> 
> Like I said, it was a liberal interpretation, so I may be a bit off. I wonder if there's some significance to my and Amanita's reaction to ascanius and the thread's topic. Someone with common sense might possibly find humor in it.



Spot on!  Actually that is exactly what I meant about everything, everything but this.


Ouroboros said:


> By saying women lack common sense, he's admitting he knows absolutely nothing about women. On top of that, ascanius expects people will think he's an idiot and walk away. There are more women than there are Popes. I think we should take that into consideration.


I said.  I don't think woman have common sense, but i know that they have their own reasons for doing things that are simply beyond the capacity of my mind.  Yes I am saying that I know Nothing about women.  What I am really saying is that to me they make no sense, but I acknowledge that they do have logic even if I don't understand it.  I don't see why this is a big deal?  So what if men and women think differently, who cares?  I don't, it creates interesting dynamics, different opinions and other things that this world would be bland without.  It means I have something more to learn, a different opinion to explore.

And secondly I never expected anyone to walk away, unless you think I am wrong?  That entire post is about understanding, and perception.  That slavery at one point was not about racism at all.  That religion is dogged on by those who do not understand it.  That women are criticized by those who cannot think the same way they do.  Understanding, plain and simple.  I may not understand women, but I seek to understand.  Just because I don't see the sense in something doesn't mean it is not there, or do you disagree?

Anders Ã„mting asked about writing slavery in a manner that does not portray them as the bad guys.  I think yes, though slavery has a negative connotation that will be hard to get rid of.  Is it politically correct to ask such a question? Probably. However where would we be now if someone didn't ask is slavery wrong?  What act in history has not been done with the belief they were doing what was right?  What about now?  The trick is understanding both points of view, I don't mean knowing them, that is easy, but understanding them, and then, only then, making a conclusion.  Try it, imagine yourself in the shoes of a slave owner, then in the shoes of the slave.  Without any of our modern connotations and beliefs.
Let me say this now, I do not think slavery is good, no matter how it is perceived.  That being said it can add elements to a book.



Ouroboros said:


> There are more women than there are Popes. I think we should take that into consideration.


I may need a little liberal interpretation for that because I don't get where your going with it?

To learn we must first understand that we know nothing.  

ps.   Ouroboros and Amanita I didn't mean anything offensive by anything I wrote, to you or anyone else.  And I am sorry if you took it that way, I can be a bit...  coarse at times.  I don't opologize for what I wrote only that I had written it poorly so that someone might take offense to it and for that I am sorry.


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## sashamerideth (Jan 25, 2012)

Ascanius... quit while you're behind 

Sent from my Blade using Forum Runner


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## Arcturus (Jan 25, 2012)

Political correctness seems to be a band-aid for institutional problems within society.  While individuals may try to "correct" the ways in which they view others who are different from them, it still does not address the real issue.  The real issue is how others are treated in the past and how society cannot break away from these ideals.

For example, women throughout history were treated differently from men for a number of reasons.  Many of these reasons were founded on ignorance/politics/science/etc.  But now some people are beginning to see the error in their ways and they try to "fix" that by enacting policies that allow for women to have the same opportunities as men.  At the same time, most people still hold on to old ideas, whether they are aware of it or not.  One example of this is when people say "policeman" instead of "police officer".  Excluding women in this case reminds us of when women could not be in the profession, therefore it is "wrong" to use the word man.  (For the sake of this conversation, man is not a universal word for humans since it implies male).  But when the word "policeman" was/is so ingrained into the public consciousness, it normalizes the fact that only men take on the role of an officer.  By saying police officer, it hypothetically allows for people to acknowledge that men and women can have this job.  However, most people will still have an image of a man.  In this sense, political correctness changes the way we use language, but not how people think.  

While I like the idea of political correctness, I don't think people are doing it correctly.  Whenever the issue of political correctness comes up, some people try and overcompensate their newfound sensitivity towards others and turn out even more racist/sexist/classist/hetero-normative/etc than before.  It also alienates those who do not realize the extent of these issues because there is barely any discussion.  Instead people end up having to defend themselves without accomplishing anything.

Much more needs to be done within society than writing a politically correct novel.  Adding a homosexual character for the sake of having a rounded out cast doesn't do anything when it comes to stopping homophobia.  Portraying a character who happens to be homosexual but also has different interests such as paying for the rent (and other things humans experience) is a start.


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## Argentum (Jan 25, 2012)

Kit said:


> Interesting follow-up thought: to present that early on, or toss it in casually three books into the series? I wonder if the latter would annoy people; if they would have already built (white) visuals of the characters in their heads and would be rattled by having their assumptions turned on end.



The latter would annoy people. It really annoys me to have plenty of time to create a mental image of the character and carry said character throughout the story. To have writers suddenly tell me in the middle of the story that the character is not what I pictured (skin color is a detail) throws me off, because now I have to go back and picture that same character with the new difference and imagine him go through the same problems all over again, because the character is entirely new at that point.

It's not just for skin color either. If hair color is not mentioned and I imagine a color, to have it suddenly mentioned later that he's blond or black haired, throws me off as well. And let's face it, skin color is an important detail. Fantasy is usually related to Medieval Europe, so everyone was white. At least, that's the reason why I always picture a white European by default in fantasy stories until someone tells me otherwise. So, even if we're all trained to think of pale Europeans at first, it's kind of cruel to avoid mentioning skin color and then mention it much later.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 25, 2012)

Argentum said:


> The latter would annoy people. It really annoys me to have plenty of time to create a mental image of the character and carry said character throughout the story. To have writers suddenly tell me in the middle of the story that the character is not what I pictured (skin color is a detail) throws me off, because now I have to go back and picture that same character with the new difference and imagine him go through the same problems all over again, because the character is entirely new at that point.
> 
> It's not just for skin color either. If hair color is not mentioned and I imagine a color, to have it suddenly mentioned later that he's blond or black haired, throws me off as well. And let's face it, skin color is an important detail. Fantasy is usually related to Medieval Europe, so everyone was white. At least, that's the reason why I always picture a white European by default in fantasy stories until someone tells me otherwise. So, even if we're all trained to think of pale Europeans at first, it's kind of cruel to avoid mentioning skin color and then mention it much later.



This. I always describe my characters' skin color and other physical characteristics as early as I can for precisley the reasons you mentioned. It can be challenging to figure out how to insert those descriptions without infodumping when introducing them though.


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## Devor (Jan 25, 2012)

Arcturus said:


> For example, women throughout history were treated differently from men for a number of reasons.  Many of these reasons were founded on ignorance/politics/science/etc.  But now some people are beginning to see the error in their ways and they try to "fix" that by enacting policies that allow for women to have the same opportunities as men.



The only thing is, some of those reasons were also founded in real physical and practical reasons as well.  With the example of the police officer, it would have been unrealistic to expect many women to handle or even want such a position throughout much of history.  Think about the armor that would have been involved a few hundred years ago, about it's weight, even how expensive it would have been to refit the armor with the normal fluctuations in a woman's shape.  Or that a sword sized for a woman would have lacked the reach of a sword sized for a larger individual.  Or the difficulties in detaining an armed suspect who was 6 ft 5 in without the equalizing force of a firearm.

There were economic needs for having a person at home as well.  Simple things like preparing dinner would have taken hours instead of 30 minutes, and if a mother was already home nursing her child, the leap in connecting a woman and the home life is not hard to make.

Certainly women have been mistreated, and certainly modern tools have realistically opened the door for women to enter every field that I can imagine, at least in places those tools are readily available.  But I think it's too easy to condemn history and forget when there were perfectly reasonable reasons for many of the occurrences we now recognize to be needlessly limiting.

That said, as fantasy writers we can choose to enhance or overcome the limitations of the past to create whatever kind of world we want.  But I think it's stronger writing if we can at least recognize the reasoning and limitations which we are, in fact, trying to enhance or overcome.  It makes more compelling and richer characters and worlds to learn about magical methods of food preservation which ease up the household needs, or else to hear the sexist jerk mention, "You think I have hours to fix dinner?  Get to the cooking, woman!"  It makes the story more real and the characters more complex to understand that there's often something rational underlying the irrational hate.


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## Steerpike (Jan 25, 2012)

Political correctness is a superficial changing of language. It is an attempt at a sort of "thought police," though it doesn't actually change thoughts or underlying subjective value judgments. That is why PC terminology has to be recycled so frequently - it is just window dressing, and it doesn't take long before the previously-PC term takes on all the connotations of the old term and a new PC word has to be put in its place.


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## Amanita (Jan 25, 2012)

> Certainly women have been mistreated, and certainly modern tools have realistically opened the door for women to enter every field that I can imagine, at least in places those tools are readily available. But I think it's too easy to condemn history and forget when there were perfectly reasonable reasons for many of the occurrences we now recognize to be needlessly limiting.



As true as that is, there's still no reason to view women as sub-human beings as has been done in many societies and is been done still in some. At least in my case, this is what I consider wrong, not the fact that men and women did different tasks.

Concerning my reaction to Ascanius' post: I have to admit that I was a bit taken aback by the the claim that all women lack common sense. This might be true for many women and girls from a rich, modern western background (myself not excluded) but I highly doubt it's true about the women who rebuilt the country after war or the ones struggling to feed their families in poorer countries today. 
Our definitions of "common sense" might vary though, you never know.

(Edited to clarify and keep on topic.)


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jan 25, 2012)

Amanita said:


> As true as that is, there's still no reason to view women as sub-human beings as has been done in many societies and is been done still in some. At least in my case, this is what I consider wrong, not the fact that men and women did different tasks.
> 
> Concerning my reaction to Ascanius' post: I have to admit that I was a bit taken aback by the the claim that all women lack common sense. This might be true for many women and girls from a rich, modern western background (myself not excluded) but I highly doubt it's true about the women who rebuilt the country after war or the ones struggling to feed their families in poorer countries today.
> Our definitions of "common sense" might vary though, you never know.
> ...



Frankly, the phrase "common sense" should be banned from the language. It's so vague and malleable as to be useless.

In fact, the only thing "common sense" means are "something I take for granted as obvious." Except it has this implication that what _I_ consider common sense is right, and everyone else is wrong. Ugh. I hate that phrase. Pet peeve.


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## Arcturus (Jan 25, 2012)

Devor, I agree that there are many physical differences that would prevent women in the past from doing the same kind of job a man would do.  There is no doubt that biology plays a huge role in how people interacted with each other.

And I'm not saying that homemaking isn't an important part of society.  In fact, being a stay-at-home parent is one of the most thankless jobs when it comes to economics.  Most people would like to believe that any job isn't worth doing unless there is some monetary reward.  Obviously this is not the case because somebody needs to take care of the children and not everybody can afford a nanny.

A better example of using science to put down women is the study that women are inferior to men because their brains are smaller.  There is also a study that women should not be educated because it would make their ovaries shrink, therefore producing infertility.  I honestly want to think of human beings in the past more highly than a bunch of mindless and bigoted creatures.  While I can excuse the misunderstanding between brain size and intelligence, I don't think scientists back then were really that stupid enough to believe that if a woman learns how to read, her ovaries will explode.  I tend to think that this sort of misinformation was mostly spread around to prevent women from pursuing a job. 

Then again, that view is far too humanistic.  Today there are still people out there who will admit that they will not vote for a female president in the U.S. because they're afraid she might get too emotional.  Some people believe that it is a woman's fault if she is attacked because of x, y and z.  Very rarely will people blame the attacker.  

On the topic of fantasy writing, I think that people should try and branch out from the obvious issues in society.  Sex and race are extremely visible in most genres of writing, mostly because we are preoccupied with these subjects.  I honestly want to see something else, mostly because I understand why so-and-so is wrong and I want to read something that takes me a few steps away from reality, not a longwinded diatribe as to why it's horrible.


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## Devor (Jan 25, 2012)

Arcturus said:


> A better example of using science to put down women is the study that women are inferior to men because their brains are smaller.



I didn't mean to pick on you or anything, I was wanting to make the point about practical reasons for the roles men and women have played in society for a while in this thread.  The police officer just seemed like a good example of it.

Claims like the one above are just disgusting, and had I seen ascanius' remark about "common sense" first I probably would've commented on it myself.  I posted a study elsewhere which remarked that the difference in brain size reflected the difference in body size.  Men have more nerves to keep track of.

Bigotry overshadows the useful insights which we can draw about the real differences between men and women.  Those differences should be respected because they serve a vital though diminishing role in developing a healthy functioning society.  They create a diversity which enhances the human experience.

That's what I believe.


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## Arcturus (Jan 25, 2012)

Oh, no.  I don't think you're picking on me at all.  After your comment, I realized that I was forgetting the argument of biology, which is important when looking at history.  I also wanted to make the point about brain size because it has little correlation with intelligence.  Instead, it has to do more with nerves, like you said, and muscle mass.  Then again, I can understand why so many people mistake brain size with intelligence, mostly because of cartoon logic.  I mean, I thought the same thing as a kid and I'm sure people who do not understand how brains work would come to the same conclusion.  But that doesn't mean it's okay.

I didn't catch the comment about common sense, but it seems like people still believe that the opposite gender is comprised of people from outer space (I blame _Men are from Mars Women are from Venus_).  There are more similarities between the genders than there are differences.  Any difference between the genders (note: not sex, as in physical traits) is cultural and for the most part, these differences are exaggerated due to people's obsession with gender roles.  From birth, children are forced to act in certain ways because of a label they are given.  It doesn't matter that nobody knows what kind of personality the child has because, hey, they are either a girl or a boy and apparently, that's all that matters.  People then make assumptions of the child as they get older.  Is the child aggressive?  If the child is male, people will say "boys will be boys".  But if the child is female, people will say she is acting out.  The same behaviors are interpreted differently on the basis of which set of genitalia the child has and they ignore any other factor that may explain it.  When it comes to "common sense", it's all confirmation bias.  People will find any evidence to explain a situation because of their own biases, which ignoring all of the situations that prove otherwise.

Like if a woman is angry, people will assume she has PMS.  Forget the fact that someone insulted her or any other situation which would make anybody angry.  It seems as though nobody has the time to fully analyze why something happens.  Instead, they try to explain behaviors instead of figuring out the cause of the behaviors.  It's all backwards, really.


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