Women in fantasy

[Ireth]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

é isso aí!

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]

é isso aí!

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


@Chilari
Yes!

 

[Butterfly]

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]

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]

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.

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.

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.

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]

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]

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]

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.