400 replies to this topic

[Datepalm]

Carrying on, while that thread shudders it's dying breaths.

I do think this is a debate worth having (the general one, not the let's read Watt's mind with our brain uplink thing, oh wait we haven't bothered to invent that yet debate. Get to it, science) but I want to expand it and talk not just about the kerfluffling of other people, but maybe create some of our own.

so i'm issuing a challenge:

Pick a genre book (extra points if its not by RS Bakker) and say something about the portrayal of gender in it. Good, bad, about women, about men, deliberate, oblivious, problematic, praiseworthy, didactic, whatever. Something.

The challenge is that it can't be a book someone has already picked.

We can think thoughts that aren't recycled, right?






(I think this is interesting becuase:

1. trends and broad examinations are always more interesting. So we've got a Yeard or an OSC. But what does it mean when we have a Yeard AND an OSC AND a Pierce Anthony AND a John Norman AND that thing Dan Simmons wrote that time?

2. I think all this fandom wankery does, if we look really hard, eventually come back down to our actual source materials. ACM did say a thing about a book, remember? If we want to examine whether her anger is justified, I think we need to look at what she's working with. Is she cherry picking, or does SFF really have an issue with gender? How about the fans?)

[oldnumericals]

Well, last one I can remember reading is J.G. Ballard's War Fever, which is a collection of his short stories; women in that collection tend to linger in the periphery, not really a focus in any of the stories wherein white men of middling ages do dumb or puzzling things.  I didn't think they were sexist, or misogynistic, just that in Mr. Ballard's world the concept of gender diversity is something that he's never lingered over.  I'll need to read some more of his fiction (I enjoyed that collection a ton), but it felt emblematic of the kind of problems a genre dominated by white male writers who grew up reading works by white male writers would have: mainly, that gender problems, if not pushed to the side or ignored altogether, is instead dismissed as an attack on the genre itself, its integrity if you will.   Sorry about my rambling.  

Actually I'm just fumbling for something other than Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence, which I bought due to some positive reviews, only to find that it was junk.

[Sci-2]

Night Circus, where the characterization is admittedly on the shallower end, did a good job of balancing out the male and female players. Part of that, I think, is because the very nature of the plot has two magic users competing, one a male and one a female.

However, I think beyond that the grounding of the plot in performances and stages also worked to its advantage, it manages to have interesting - if not well fleshed out - characters of both genders who work in professions that I am guessing might have allowed for more females despite the time period the book takes place in.

Without seeming like she's trying to set quotes quotas, Morgenstern manages to ensure that characters that have major impacts and have power to influence the plot are both male and female. If a character fails, it never seems like the character fails because of their gender.

Perhaps because it is written by a woman, and one writing outside of the genre's usual conventions, you don't have the damsel in distress, the ice queen, or the fan service sex plots.

While I felt the actual relationship lacked proper development, lacking what I believe Lyanna referred to as unresolved sexual/romantic tension pre-relationship, the relationship was clearly one of equals.

Whew....that was harder than I thought, to develop thoughts that weren't snark related to Bakker or Roh...

Edited by sciborg2, 15 April 2012 - 06:08 PM.

[Datepalm]

oldnumericals, on 15 April 2012 - 05:54 PM, said:

gender problems, if not pushed to the side or ignored altogether, is instead dismissed as an attack on the genre itself, its integrity if you will.   Sorry about my rambling.  

Actually I'm just fumbling for something other than Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence, which I bought due to some positive reviews, only to find that it was junk.

It's that weirdness of the mixed opinion, I think. I mean, I can think that something was pretty good in a lot of ways, and to think that it sucked from the point of view of gender, all at the same time. I don't know whats so hard about it. In this sense, I'm really a lot more comfortable with ROH's form of criticism which takes the, say, gender angle and sort of says front and center: This and this alone is what I will be considering here (there is, as has been noted, even a performative aspect to it) vs. a review like Sadie Doyle's of ASOIAF that didn't seem to have that honesty. "I didn't like this and so it's all creepy and sucks," and misses a lot of complexity along the way.

How was PoT? I can't decide from the reviews if it sounds totally transgressive or exactly more of the same dialed up a notch higher.

ETA - I want to go on about Enterprise of Death and identification over factual accuracy or any hard set of traits in portraying women, but I also really want to ramble on about masculinity in Rivers of London for some reason. Decisions.

Edited by Datepalm, 15 April 2012 - 06:46 PM.

[Aoife]

Man, I lost my post. Summarized version.

Book / series: Ruins of Ambrai, Melanie Rawn
Premise of gender examination: due to some magical plague, "unblemished" children are not common anymore. Classes have developed based on how many birth defects have shown up in X generations since it has happened. Note that the "blemishes" range from unsurvivable birth defects to totally superficial things like port wine birthmarks.
How this is expressed in the books: Women rule society, and men are chattel. Women are soldiers, politicians, heads of families, etc. Men... well, here:

Quote

As the importance of women increased, men lost prominence and all power in the aftermath of the Waste Wars. After a time, men became akin to slaves in society's eyes. A Tierless woman is considered above a man. First Daughters can marry their male family members off for political and business gains. A man is supposed to lower his eyes for women and always wear coifs in public to cover their hair. The prestige, power, and political influence a woman can have is often based on her Tier. A man of a higher Tier will be sought after for a consort to enrich or preserve a bloodline.

What I thought: Some of the implementation was obviously ridiculous (men covering their hair), but I thought it was meant to show the ridiculousness of the real-world equivalent. I don't recall any notion that women were unable to control their sexual urges, so it wasn't to prevent temptation. I think it was just to reinforce their lesser status.
Others seemed okay at first glance (women ruling, men being denied status as soldiers because they might rebel), but... the childbearing women from the powerful bloodlines wouldn't be "sheltered" beyond belief? The necessity of repopulating bloodlines means that people with *birthmarks* are abandoned, rather than "anyone who survives past X age" being accepted?
Naturally, this order of things doesn't last too long. One of the main characters works to give men equality, and another examines the "bloodline" class system.
There is a certain amount of examination of the effect of the speed of change which gets interesting, but even so, it's remarkably easy and straightforward. Not too much bloodshed, all things considered. There's some, especially as different factions come out into the open, but a total societal overhaul without mass revolution and power-grabs?

Don't get me wrong, I loved it at the time, and I expect I'll get the last volume if it ever comes out, but I can't really say I'd recommend it as a "feminist" examination, despite the superficial trappings. Well, except maybe for those who've never even thought of how ridiculous some of these modesty/submissive impositions can get. At the time, though, it was one of the few fantasy books I was aware of that did this sort of thing. (MZB's Mists of Avalon comes to mind, but I'll leave discussing that one to someone else.)

[Contrarius]

How about the entire Vorkosigan series? Those books often have a lot to say about gender. Most obviously in what I think is the weakest book in the series, Ethan of Athos (Athos is a planet of all males, who reproduce artificially), but in just about every book there is some gender-related issue being discussed -- from off-hand comments about "my wife and her girlfriend" to major characters who become transsexual in order to get around patriarchal inheritance systems.

[polishgenius]

So this topic sparked me off thinking about the gender issues of one of my favourite series, Malazan (Erikson's branch, specifically). Now - speaking from the perspective of a man- I think that Erikson, although he sometimes rightly gets heavily criticised for his character work, deserves a lot of credit for his women. In a lot of ways the female characters are more varied and nuanced than the males, who are sometimes interchangeable and certainly often drawn from what seems like a few basic templates. Also, he manages to avoid the common trap of portraying women that the men are attracted to as of one or two kinds of femininity (I hope I'm phrasing that well enough - Eddings and the way every single woman that one of the men fancies or falls in love with is either a lot like C'Nedra or, more likely, a lot like Polgara is the most obvious example, but I've noticed it in everyone from Butcher to Rothfuss to Lynch) and indeed personality and, when writing from a woman's PoV does manage to write an attraction to men (though it definitely has a less sexual flavour than the other way round).

However, two things bug me:
First, while the series is absolutely rampant with BFF bromances, there's not even a sniff of gay men, whereas there's more than a touch of casual lesbianism (a completely pointless scene in Memories of Ice being the one that really sticks in mind).
The other is that while Erikson is unusual in portraying a woman-on-man rape as a traumatic and not at all desirable event, in the long run there are two instances of a child of rape (well, three, but in one the interaction of the children and the victim is off-page, as the rapist is the protagonist and leaves straight away - a long-running plot that is not undisturbing in itself, it must be said, though as yet to be resolved), and whereas the woman is still traumatised and finds it difficult to connect with and care for the child, the man pretty casually accepts his child into a father-son bond almost instantly. The effect is compounded by, off the top of my head, at least two other mother-child relationships where the woman struggles to bond but no instances where a father does. While it is refreshing to see it acknowledged that being a mother isn't always sunshine and roses and an unbreakable dedication to the wellbeing of the child, I can't help but leave with the impression that for all the effort he puts in to portray something of an equality in genders, when it comes right down to it women still need more help and protection.



Hmm. Breaking the rules slightly by talking about two books, but the part above about the portrayal of femininity and a sexual gaze has made me wonder: does anyone else think that considering the amount of graphic sex and the importance that sexual politics plays in the series, aSoIaF has remarkably little by way of the portrayal of actual desire? I mean we're told that Tyrion wants Shae but I can't remember anything about why beyond 'he's horny', and much the same goes for Theon and others. Ygritte and Dany's crushes being the exceptions that spring to mind. I dunno if it's just me and I'm not really sure what to make of that in terms of actual discussion, if anything it probably ties in with my general perception that GRRM isn't that good at character interaction. But there it is, just a thought.

Edited by polishgenius, 15 April 2012 - 08:01 PM.

[SkynJay]

Well, we will be getting back to who does it wrong in no time I am sure, so I will give one well known author who I feel does it right.

Terry Pratchett.  And I think he has done it several times.  Granny Weatherwax is my favorite fantasy character period.  Magrat is a wonderful woman, who while young, is never described for her beauty, only her strengths and weaknesses.  Susan may be the more typical fantasy book women, being beautiful, but at no point does that become her defining characteristic.  Name any overweight woman in fantasy lit that isn't either a bar maid or a crone other than Agnes.

Pratchett is one of the few male authors who has filled his works with as many strong women as men, without ever feeling that he had to come up with a reason for them to turn into super-girl( Granny especially, just wanted to be a witch and wouldn't take no for an answer from her mentor).

[kalbear]

Pratchett does fall a bit into some of the typical gender roles too easily (ie, witches vs the academy men) but I think that is mostly a product of his parodying the actual life( most old college profs in England are men) and not him stating it as the way things are. One thing I will take him to task on - women in his books are almost always the straight man. There aren't bumbling women or clueless, funny women or cmot dibbler women. This isn't 100 % true, but it often is and it's a shame.

I just finished the stieg larsson trilogy. It is odd because it's so meant to be a "women rule" kind of thing, but it makes every woman this Really Good Charaxter and if you're a bad guy you will hate women, no exceptions. It pedestalizes women quite a bit.

[SkynJay]

Kalbear, on 15 April 2012 - 09:01 PM, said:

Pratchett does fall a bit into some of the typical gender roles too easily (ie, witches vs the academy men) but I think that is mostly a product of his parodying the actual life( most old college profs in England are men) and not him stating it as the way things are. One thing I will take him to task on - women in his books are almost always the straight man. There aren't bumbling women or clueless, funny women or cmot dibbler women. This isn't 100 % true, but it often is and it's a shame.

Nanny Ogg?  Sure she is strong in her own way, but isn't she most often Castello to Granny's Abbot?  It is only one example sure, but it is a fairly major one, as she is not just a side character like dibbler.

He also writes evil women characters, he does not just put each and every female on a pedestal.  The Duchess in Wyrd Sisters, and the Godmother come to mind.

[Sci-2]

1.) Kal's post made me think of this Steinem quote: “A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.”

eta: I've only read one Prachett book, Small Gods, so not qualified to judge his body o' work.

2.) Also, video on skepticism and feminism by Rebecca Watson. Though I'm a believer, and sometimes I think Rebecca needlessly goes after beliefs that don't harm others, I still found it interesting and worth the watch.

Edited by sciborg2, 15 April 2012 - 09:11 PM.

[oldnumericals]

Datepalm, on 15 April 2012 - 06:31 PM, said:

How was PoT? I can't decide from the reviews if it sounds totally transgressive or exactly more of the same dialed up a notch higher.

It didn't disgust me so much as make me wonder why I was wasting my time reading a 14-year old's power fantasy.  More of the same considering the genre, I suppose.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Dammit. I wish I had the time to participate in this particular discussion. One book I have consistently enjoyed that has musings on gender (and class) is The Snow Queen by Joan Vinge. The titular antagonist is one of the most interesting female characters I've run across in awhile, although it took me until my second read of the story to really grok her characterization and motivations. The book's protagonist is also female, and while it's difficult to read a 16-year-old's POV (especially one that is something of a religious nutjob at the beginning) the first time through the book, it ends of being compelling reading. The plot is a bit overwrought in that space-opera way, but it fits with the themes that Vinge was trying to explore.

Edited by Xray the Enforcer, 15 April 2012 - 09:19 PM.

[kalbear]

SkynJay, on 15 April 2012 - 09:07 PM, said:

Nanny Ogg?  Sure she is strong in her own way, but isn't she most often Castello to Granny's Abbot?  It is only one example sure, but it is a fairly major one, as she is not just a side character like dibbler.

Ogg was the one example I could come up with honestly. And maybe vimes love interest. Most of the others are still very male dominated, especially with humor.

Quote

He also writes evil women characters, Jhe does not just put each and every female on a pedestal.  The Duchess in Wyrd Sisters, and the Godmother come to mind.

truth. Though writing evil women fantasy characters is hardly groundbreaking, especially the ones he picks. (his version of elves was much better).

[Sonic The Hedgehog]

I'll throw one of my favorite series/books to the wolves: The Book of The New Sun. Now admittedly, you can chalk some of the treatment of women in these books up to

Spoiler

Severian being an unreliable narrator and perhaps lying about some of his encounters with women, and how interested they are in him...

but the fact is that most of the women in the story do have some kind of sexual contact with the protagonist.

I can almost forget about that given the unusual nature of the story, and the sense that the events of the story are almost destined in a way. But there are other moments that I think are more...problematic.

Spoiler

I feel bad for Jolenta in particular. She's seduced by money and vanity (quite common desires) and almost seems to be punished for that. She's possibly raped by Severian (I know there's debate about whether he was being honest there), she's treated cruelly by Dr Talos who gave her her new body in the first place (and he's otherwise portrayed as quirky and endearing, and free of resentment from Severian, even though Talos abandoned her), and she ultimately dies, only to be remembered by Severian as "I need to tell poor Jonas that that woman he knew almost nothing about, and only loved because she was an artificial construct like him is dead."

As ACM might say, Jolenta's death is only remembered as Jonas' man pain. Thecla serves a similar role for Severian. There's also an incident where Severian remembers an older torturer relating to him that sex is used to torture women. This torturer has become impotent, and reveals his shame of having to rely on a metal dildo to get the job done. If I recall correctly, Severian's pity goes to the impotent torturer for having to rely on such a thing...not to the women being subjected to the rape .

Maybe Severian is just a jackass who also rewrites the past to how he likes it. It could be deliberate. But I can count the number of women Severian doesn't sexualize on one hand and still have fingers left over. Same with women of power in the story.

[Grack21]

Good lord, I'm gone for 12 hours and all this happens.

I feel I need to respond to something in the earlier thread regarding the ACM/Bakker thing, then I'll drop it.
I do not in any instance EVER EVER think threats of rape/violence are allowed/should be allowed/think thats OK.
AT this point, i think both Bakker and ACM are rude assholes.
Should they be silenced? No. Am i going to take anything they say seriously? Hell no.

@Sciborg2 I don't remember how the women were described in 10k Kingdoms. Read it a long time ago. I THINK the main character is described as being weird looking but attractive, but It's been a while, and I read books like Cookie Monster eats cookies.

@Datepalm I really, really enjoyed Prince of Thorns, and I don't get most people's hate for it at all. It's certainly not something I'd casual recommend, cause its dark as hell, but overall I found it fascinating. I would say if you like Glen Cook/Robert E Howard go for it.Also, the people who call it out for all the rape, well, they didn't read it.  I just typed more words then both rape "scenes" take up in the book. ANd one of them doesn't even really happen "on camera", as it were.Also we need to get together and chat about TSCC sometimes. My god, did I love that show.

I need to look at my books, but I think the way gender is portrayed in Abraham Long Price was really interesting. Women are treated less equally then men, but some of them both know and want to change it. Some go about it in the wrong ways though. I don't know, I'm tired and I'm not good with the gender stuff(obviously).

[Grack21]

Sonic The Hedgehog, on 15 April 2012 - 09:58 PM, said:

I'll throw one of my favorite series/books to the wolves: The Book of The New Sun. Now admittedly, you can chalk some of the treatment of women in these books up to

Spoiler

Severian being an unreliable narrator and perhaps lying about some of his encounters with women, and how interested they are in him...

but the fact is that most of the women in the story do have some kind of sexual contact with the protagonist.

I can almost forget about that given the unusual nature of the story, and the sense that the events of the story are almost destined in a way. But there are other moments that I think are more...problematic.

Spoiler

I feel bad for Jolenta in particular. She's seduced by money and vanity (quite common desires) and almost seems to be punished for that. She's possibly raped by Severian (I know there's debate about whether he was being honest there), she's treated cruelly by Dr Talos who gave her her new body in the first place (and he's otherwise portrayed as quirky and endearing, and free of resentment from Severian, even though Talos abandoned her), and she ultimately dies, only to be remembered by Severian as "I need to tell poor Jonas that that woman he knew almost nothing about, and only loved because she was an artificial construct like him is dead."

As ACM might say, Jolenta's death is only remembered as Jonas' man pain. Thecla serves a similar role for Severian. There's also an incident where Severian remembers an older torturer relating to him that sex is used to torture women. This torturer has become impotent, and reveals his shame of having to rely on a metal dildo to get the job done. If I recall correctly, Severian's pity goes to the impotent torturer for having to rely on such a thing...not to the women being subjected to the rape .

Maybe Severian is just a jackass who also rewrites the past to how he likes it. It could be deliberate. But I can count the number of women Severian doesn't sexualize on one hand and still have fingers left over. Same with women of power in the story.

I don't think Severian is suppoed to be
1. Sane
2. A likable character.

[Sonic The Hedgehog]

Grack21, on 15 April 2012 - 10:03 PM, said:

I don't think Severian is suppoed to be
1. Sane
2. A likable character.

I can't argue with that. I like him because he is interesting, but certainly not as a person. I feel like that's something I can say about the majority of characters in books and movies. They're cool, witty, funny, badasses, and usually also horrible people I'd never want to meet in real life.

Chiming in on Prince of Thorns: I'm surprised at both sides of the reactions I've seen to it. When I first heard people say they disliked it because of the many rapes, I honestly couldn't remember any happening, because as you say, they're just passing remarks made by the narrator.

The praise it receives also confuses me though. Upon finishing it my first thought was "If I had just come off reading Dragonlance, I would've thought this was great." I don't mean to belittle the story, but the fact that the protagonist is 11-14 years old throughout the book and yet manages to beat and kill huge men in fights, have lots of sex (the scene where he's reading the history book perched on the ass of a woman he's having sex with was bad), curse, and have this angsty, dark humor attitude wasn't something I could take seriously. I'm aware of the reason given for his fighting prowess, but that still wasn't enough to satisfy me for a child beating a man who is over six feet tall.

The book has some neat ideas, but I didn't get what the big deal was. And even if the rape mentions weren't too bad, I did find it a little jarring that the one black character in the book was constantly referred to by his race. I seriously can't remember that guy's name, because he was only ever called the Nuban.

[Sci-2]

Heh, I swing like a pendulum on Prince of Thorns. Parts are good, parts are silly. It is like a D&D novel, not sure if that is a bad thing. Women could really have been written better.

[Roose Bolton's Pet Leech]

The Hobbit: women, what women?

The Lord of the Rings: there aren't many female characters, but they tend to exert significant power within a specific sphere (Galadriel, Shelob, even Lobelia Sackville-Baggins).  Eowyn is the closest the book comes to exploring gender tensions, a woman stuck in a martial culture who is seeking an escape from a social cage. Along the way, she demonstrates that women are just as courageous as men, but having had a taste of warfare finds a place for himself in less destructive pursuits. On the other hand, Arwen and Rosie Cotton exist mostly as hero-rewards, and the former is a watered down Luthien.

The Silmarillion: More powerful females within their own domains (Melian, Ungoliant, Nerdanel, and most spectacularly Luthien). Luthien  not only disobeys the regal authority of her father, but helps Beren achieve one third of the impossible (the recovery of the Silmaril without divine intervention), and then follows it up with the out-and-out impossible (moving Mandos to release Beren). Aredhel, Nienor, and Tar-Miriel are tragic characters within a wider framework of tragedy, Galadriel's story depends on what version you are using, and Haleth is a bona fide example of a woman successfully operating as a military leader.

Edited by Roose Bolton's Pet Leech, 15 April 2012 - 10:34 PM.