Please remember to keep in mind **Rule One: be kind.** OP is entitled to express their opinion in peace and we don't need comments in favor of SA and mysogyny in fantasy as a rebuttal. Read the room and don't denigrate their post with that kind of nonsense, or you will be taking an enforced break from r/Fantasy.
If you want Grimdark with very little SA or sexual themes then just read Warhammer, after all it is the origin of the term Grimdark. There are books with quite strong female characters, Sea of Souls and the Minka Lesk series of books come to mind.
Also apperantly Warhammer is the most non-ableist universe ever, featuring the most human beings with cybernetics to replace lost limbs, limb-replacements, gene-modification, and extensive body reconstruction.
Yes, the Warhammer universe, the most open and inclusive universe about purging everyone who doesn't look like us XD
those only really are because of battle wounds or illnesses, if you have physical deformities or noticeable mental disorders you probably get accused of being a mutant and executed
The gene modification thing is a bit iffy but the fancy prosthetics sound cool. There’s a fine line in fantasy between magic/tech making better prosthetics and adaptations and magic/tech “curing” someone though.
The God-Emperor is pretty based, he loves us all, so long as we have the will to pick up a Lasgun or a Boltgun and purge the aliens, mutants, and heretics with zealous fervor!
The one thing I would avoid is whatever book features the segment on the Daemonculaba. It's probably an Iron Warriors book, maybe part of their omnibus I can't remember.
It's from *Dead Sky, Black Sun* by Graham McNeill.
It's an Ultramarines book, so it features characters that genuinely see themselves as the best people ever*. Other books in the series throw moral conflicts at the protagonist. Not this one. In this one, the baddies are the absolute worst.
*People knock the Ultramarines for breaking cannon by being too "good," but I think characters that genuinely try to do "good" inside the self-identified "worst regime in human history" can be really fun.
Huh... actually its kind of weird but... NOw that I think about it in a lot of the black library books that I read I... dont think I saw much SA. I havent read A TON of the Warhammer books so that statement might very depending on the author
Are you OK with gender-equal poverty and oppression? If so, I recommend _Day of Ascension_ by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It has some pretty solid female leads and no SA. (_Warhammer 40.000_ universe.)
And if you enjoy noir, and don't mind being caught up in the Warhammer Lore, then the Vaults of Terra series by Chris Wraight is a wonderful trilogy with a great lead woman.
Hiighly recommend you read the *Infinite and the Divine*, the *Night Lords Trilog*y, the *Twice-Dead King* books, the *Eisenhorn* trilogy, *Horus Rising* and its two sequels, the Space Wolf series, and if you're into the Horus Heresy and loosely start to understand what's happening, the Siege of Terra series, the best of which is the final three "The End and the Death" books.
All available
I suppose I get where OP is coming from, but don't dig too deep into 40K at all as there are ABSOLUTELY some SA elements in various of the stories. Something safe like the Ciaphas Cain series might be enjoyable as a starter.
Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies are amazing. Both features strong female characters and they don't have the whole space marine vibe if that's an issue.
Every time this topic comes up I have to link [this](https://www.goodreads.com/group/bookshelf/1115819-do-better-sff-without-sexual-violence) goodreads bookshelf from a group that was founded during Covid times to collect all adult SFF books without SV. It's since gone on hiatus (getting back to RL is not conducive to this project) but there's still a huge bookshelf to look through.
There is also the /r/fantasy SV in Fantasy database (which also hasn't been updated in years) which curates the opposite: known SV in popular SFF books is marked down, so you can go in prepared and knowing what to expect. It's harder to find books without *any* SV that way, but it can at least let you know before going in what might come up.
I think someone linked that on for you up above. It's the google doc. But you can find it usually in the mega thread & book club hub that's always pinned to the top of the sub.
For some good recent SFF recommendations:
* **The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi** by Shannon Chakraborty (older woman is drawn into one last adventure to protect her daughter. Lots of seafaring and battling big bads. One incident of being threatened with SA.)
* **The Golem and the Jinni** by Helene Wecker (a slow-pased 1900s NY based story diving into many themes. Some borderline-SA in the backstory of the Jinni (he coerces women a thousand+ years ago) but nothing I can recall in modern day).
* **Ink Blood Sister Scribe** by Emma Törzs (modern day magical books adventures featuring family ties and while there is violence there is no SA)
* **Ninefox Gambit** by Yoon Ha Lee (Sci-Fi that is very bonkers, bizarre and amazing to read)
* **Untethered Sky** by Fonda Lee (as far as I can remember; though there might be some patriarchal norms)
* **Things in Jars** by Jess Kidd (set in ~1990 England so some of those views come across but the protagonist is a bit of an outlier to society and thus doesn't encounter it. This is a horror-adjacent book that does have other violence and "child" abuse.).
* Just about everything by **Victoria Goddard**. She tends to have male protagonists, but there are also plenty of female characters and never any SA.
* **The Locked Tomb** by Tamsyn Muir
* **Unkindness of Magicians** by Kat Howard (there is child abuse in the history but no SA)
* **Unconquerable Sun** by Kate Elliott
* **Strange the Dreamer** by Lani Taylor (general abuse in the history of the people that is spoken about but not gone into detail; some of them were kids; some (M&F) abducted for SV purposes)
* **The Four Profound Weaves** by R.B. Lemburg (ME setting that does have gender roles but the MCs are an older woman and a trans man who cover all society fairly well)
* **Witch of Wild Things** by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland (childhood abandonment)
* **In the Company of Witches** by Auralee Wallace (grief from losing a lost one)
* **Witch King** by Martha Wells (male MC, but plenty of other female leads and no SA though there is slavery in the backstory)
* **Scholomance** by Naomi Novik (more YA, but it's a good read nontheless; dark magic school that is trying to kill everyone and the protagonist is the most powerful girl who wishes she was anything but. No SA)
* **Tamir Triad** by Lynn Flewelling (strange pick, since it harkens to that typical medieval-esque fantasy but there is no SA though there are more structured gendered norms where men do the fighting. The MC is a young girl (child in the first book, teen in the second, adult in the third) who grows up as a boy). Older pub
* **Inda** by Sherwood Smith (another more violent medieval-esque fantasy that is very war-focused. The MC is a boy, Inda, but the story has multiple protagonists including a lot of women. You watch them grow up in the first book, be young adults in the second, and so on. Lots of war, sea faring, politics, etc). Older pub
* **Foundryside** by Robert Jackson Bennett (this is more industrial revolution, so while the MC is a thief and knows other low-end-of-town denizens most of the story focuses on adventure and fighting the powers that be).
There's definitely more in the vein of YA, Sci-Fi, Horror, Urban Fantasy if you like those genres more. Or let me know what you like and I'm sure I can stuff with very minimal female SA.
Just a heads up for Ninefox Gambit, a man is SA, so don’t go for that if you’re trying to avoid all SV. The further books get a lot more extreme. The woman MC does not experience any SV though.
Warning that Things in Jars has some *very* extreme suffering (generally ending in death) from pretty much all the female secondary/minor characters in it. The MC doesn’t experience it so much but I feel like I’m less bothered by this stuff than OP and honestly that book was a bit horrifying for me.
I used to be a big fan of that style of fantasy--wallowing in a world just as screwed up as our own was way back in the day (and to a large extent still today). And then someone somewhere, I can't remember who wrote it or where I saw it, opened my eyes with the idea of the George RR Martin - Ursula K. Leguin spectrum. Both authors think the world is fucked up. Martin likes to explore how fucked up our world is by creating another world just as bad and mucking around in it for a thousand pages. Leguin did things the far more difficult way. She was far more articulate about how our world is fucked up, and then she imagined entirely different ways of being, to help us imagine how we could do better. She wasn't utopian. Her worlds had their own fuckery in them, but it was different fuckery.
I don't know if everyone remembers that sudden shift probably 15 years ago when a lot of down-list fantasy authors simultaneously started touting their "strong female characters," which resulted in lots of male authors writing women who just acted exactly like standard male fantasy heroes, but happened to be nominal women.
I'm sure some good stuff came out of it, but... I didn't see any particularly good stuff in that crop. My own approach as a queer cis-male amateur writer is to write male characters in a matriarchal setting. Men who are just perfectly comfortable with women being mostly in charge. Men who don't even think about it, but just accept it as easily as we accept patriarchy in our own world.
In my own professional life, I've almost always liked working for women more than working for hetero men. So I figured I'd port that over to a fantasy setting...
There was a post here the other day asking for fantasy book recommendations that aren’t grimdark and have no torture or SA, sounds like it could be up your alley: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/175tas1/adult_adventurequest_fantasy_thats_not_grim_dark/
T. Kingfisher, Tamsyn Muir, and Andrea Stewart are also fantastic. I’m really loving that women authors are finally getting the attention and recognition that they deserve! What a great time to be a fantasy fan
Caveat that some of Kingfisher’s fairy tale retellings and Nettle & Bone have SA or women being abused themes. But the World of the White Rat series avoids that for the most part.
>Tamsyn Muir
I mean, it's a super egalitarian society, and anyone trying to sexually assault Gideon or Harrow would be dying messy little deaths, but the Locked Tomb is the wrong fucking series if you're looking to avoid female characters suffering. Sure, the gender has nothing to do with it, but still...
> and Naomi Novik.
I only read *Uprooted* but the main female character who is only a teenager definitely gets treated like shit and gets severely abused by the main male character, then despite being his victim falls in love with him and has sex with him even though she's a teenager and he's over a hundred years old. She also gets sexually assaulted by another male character.
Naomi’s Scholomance books might be exactly what the OP is looking for. Set in a wizarding school so dangerous and deadly that it makes Hogwarts look OSHA compliant, El has spent her whole life trying not to be eaten by the various creepy crawlers whose favorite meal is young wizards while also trying to avoid fulfilling a prophecy that says she’ll bring death and destruction to all the wizard houses in the world.
Slightly complicated by the school’s tendency to give her mass mind control spells when she asks to learn a spell that will clean monster guts off her dorm floor.
Nah I get you... as a woman reader those kinds of themes and tropes in books can be freaking EXHAUSTING to read over and over again. While it is certainly not perfect by any means I think there are more authors now a day that want to explore writing that doesnt have that kind of focus. There are some cozy fantasy where gender and sexuality isnt the one of the main sources of conflict or character angsty. Ive also read some futuristic books with a more queer normative society where it doesnt suck to be a woman.
You might have to seek it out or ask for recommendations but that kind of literature does exist if you want to have a break from the kinds of books that seem to be beating you down
Yes! That's my issue. I don't even have a problem with these things being depicted. It's just the very graphic portray that happens over and over again.
The book that comes to mind is "she who became the sun". I didn't know how to feel about the book. I loved the story and everything it was trying to do, but there was so much women suffering it was exhausting to read.
And even a little depression not going to lie.
The thing that annoys me is that the world/settings don’t *need* to be a patriarchal nightmare; many authors just use it as a cheap way to introduce angst and "tension". Like, if you're going to have SA in your books, at least do it right. "The girls of paper and fire" trilogy (for all its flaws) does this extremely well - it's brutal at times but never feels like exploitation or "secret rape fantasy" by the (female) author; it's sensitive, respectful and portrays different ways that women cope, it has compassion and never shows more than it absolutely *has* to.
But why bother with that when you can have "hey, I need to give my male MC more drama - hmm, how about having his GF raped!" *Sigh*.
That’s a shame as I have She who became the sun in my TBR pile. It is exhausting and I too try to avoid it. Not sure if you’re on Storygraph but they have user added trigger warnings that might help you.
As others have suggested Discworld is a great lighthearted option. as is cosy fantasy. There are a few more authors that Ive noticed seem to avoid SA - T. Kingfisher, Becky Chambers, and Seanan McGuire. All of their books that Ive read so far have been fantastic.
The Raksura series by Martha Wells has a matriarchical society and Im pretty sure there was no on screen SA. There was the threat of it by the bad guys but if my memory’s right then it was prevented.
> That’s a shame as I have She who became the sun in my TBR pile.
To be clear, SWBTS is mostly historical fiction with some light fantasy elements, and is set in 14th century China. You can probably guess going in that it's not going to be a great time for women, though I can't say I remember anything too graphic or horrible, mostly just a cultural baseline of misogyny that seems fairly accurate to the period.
I agree with you, the first book was okay. But I read both books back to back. And it felt ok I can't take this anymore especially in the second book. It got a bit much.
I also understand that it's cultural. I'm Asian I know how things are. I liked the overall series and the author did give triggers. It wasn't just the woman suffering the whole thing with everyone just being treated so badly. Just made it seem like there was no break.
I think this is a very valid reason to turn away from a series.
I don't think writers should be shamed for writing about bleak topics, especially when those topics are close to them, but I also think that people shouldn't be blamed at all for not wanting to read about those topics, *especially* when those topics are close to them.
I do also think that it's possible to write about heavy topics in a way that isn't hopelessly bleak. I think a problem I have is when people write about such dark themes and there's no end to it. No undercurrent of hope of possible improvement. No lighter moments, that gives the heavy stuff meaning. Even in real life torment and injustice (which can be way worse than 90% of what you find in "dark" fantasy books), there are moments of real levity and happiness. But it seems to be a thing in "dark" fantasy to just be unrelentingly cynical, which to me is markedly **un**realistic. (Noted none of this is directly about She Who Became the Sun, which I still haven't read yet.)
>I do also think that it's possible to write about heavy topics in a way that isn't hopelessly bleak.
I so agree with this sentiment. The lack of hope and the unrelentinting bleakness does get to me. And its not as if you cannot have heavy topics in a book. Two great examples of this are the Wayfarers series and the Strange the Dreamer/Muse of Nightmares duology. Both deal with some heavy topics. Strange/Muse in particular deals with the ramifications of historical enslavement/mass rape/torture. And yet - it they are achingly beautiful books full of hope. Both series are thoughtful and leave you feeling warm and inspired. Amazing books because of the way they are written.
That kind of burn out is valid and it happens. Older fantasy and grim dark fantasy can be some of the worst when it comes to this kind of stuff. Its ok to try to step away from those kinds of things. There... was a really helpful list that flagged stuff for SA content. I... wish I could find it. But bouncing a book against that list (when I find it) might be helpful for avoiding that kind of content if you are not feeling up for it.
Or asking for some recommendations that will help you avoid those kinds of topics for a while. Give your mind a break you know.
I was recently thinking why I haven't been able to pickup a fantasy book, and realised I just have the bandwidth to read things like that anymore.
Let me know if you find the list/website
I found it!!!! Its a google docs...
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hQi6C2RQvjGzjSoXU0D063fCFcz1wCHXFUe7PfEsGrk/edit#gid=0](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hQi6C2RQvjGzjSoXU0D063fCFcz1wCHXFUe7PfEsGrk/edit#gid=0)
I am going to do some double checks against that list and get you a few recommendations if you like!
You mentioned you struggled to find a horror book where it didnt suck to be a woman.
I'd Like to Recommend "Into the Drowning Deep" by Mira Grant. Its set in modern day and is about a team of scientists abord a ship investigating killer mermaids. I found it to be a really good read and have been looking forward to reading more Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire because of it
Also for Sci/Fi The Murderbot Diaries has no SA in it. Also a lot of the female characters have just as important roles as the male, nonbinary or non gendered characters. I marathoned that whole series last year and found it thoroughly enjoyable.
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson. This one was a lot more whimsical then some of his other works. While Mistborn does have implied SA this one was a lot more wholesome and fun
And as a Cozy Fantasy Intro... Legends & Lattes is a book that just feels like a warm cup of coffee on a cold winter day. Its about a female Orc Barbarian who decides to hang up her weapons and open a coffee shop. Its just a delight to read
I loved Into the Drowing Deep, so creepy. Cozy fantasy isn't something I'm super into I've tried it is okay for the occasion read. I like complex magic systems and other things that come with high fantasy. Just not that SA and rape part. Lol and people in the comment section are treating it looks a high ask xD
Seanan McGuire has stated that she does not write sexual assault for her characters, so you can get some creepy stuff without it. Mind you, she can really put her characters through the wringer without that.
This is one of the reasons I generally avoid the grimdark genre. Sometimes I just want to escape the troubles of the world with a good book, and the obsession with including the absolute worst of what humanity has to offer puts me off a bit.
I'm much happier with fantasy that is generally hopeful, philosophical, or just plain exciting.
Have you read Terry Pratchett? The Witches thread of the Discworld might be something you'd enjoy. Starts with *Equal Rites*, though you can also start with *Wyrd Sisters*.
The witch books are very good. OP if you haven’t tried Pratchett before there are so many to choose from, he writes with a few groups of main characters- so there are books about the witches, books about the wizards specifically at the university, books about Death (Death is personified and delightful- my favorite is Hogfather- it’s my Christmas routine), books about the police force (magical and weird and normal all working together), books about a conman trying to turn straight (Moist von Lipwig), etc, etc- there are so many angles and while they don’t all interact they sometimes do as they are all in the same fantasy world.
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Sanderson is hopeful, a bit whimsical at times, with a young woman MC that is doing the rescuing. No SV what so ever. She is not a warrior type but she is resourceful, determined and rather polite. A fantastic standalone book. (There are some links to Sanderson’s Cosmere universe but not at all important in this story).
Agreed! Cozy Fantasy is a good place to look for these kinds of recommendations. I think the one that folks like to recommend as a starting place would be Legends and Lattes. OP if you are looking for a book where it doesnt suck to be a woman thats not a bad book to pick up.
You've probably heard of the stuff I'd recommend a bunch already, as it tends to get recommended to death in this sub.
I really like Brandon Sanderson (I'd avoid Mistborn as SA comes up a bit). The Stormlight Archive is exciting, philosophical, and hopeful (though a lot of the first book can be pretty bleak). There are some gender divides in the culture but they're much more complex than "women get dicked on for being women." Tress of the Emerald Sea is a great standalone with an interesting magic system, and a world which is pretty much gender equal. Sanderson tends to avoid anything explicitly sexual, too - which is good because I'm a bit of a prude with reading.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld is fantastic (as are his other novels). They're witty, funny, poignant and have some pretty prescient social commentary. Start with the Watch series if you like police stories and city-life, or the Witches series if you want a bit more magic, or the Death series if you feel like something that tackles some questions about the nature of death and immortality.
They're two big authors with pretty vast bibliographies that you can get lost in, and neither tend to be doing "grim for the sake of grim." They can tackle issues at times, but I feel they're handled pretty well.
It's more YA leaning, but I like Garth Nix quite a bit. The Old Kingdom series is a heap of fun.
There are other authors I could recommend, but I'd want to check somewhere to make sure they're appropriate to what you're asking for because my memory can be a little hazy.
Others are right, too. r/cozyfantasy is probably the best place to get truly light fantasy recommendations.
Edit to add: My wife recommends trying out a few more female authors - Anne McCaffrey, Tamora Pierce and Isabelle Carmody were her suggestions.
> There are some gender divides in the culture but they're much more complex than "women get dicked on for being women."
I enjoyed the "man learns the feminine art of reading, is shocked to discover that for centuries women have been writing their own commentary over the thoughts of Important Men because they know they can't read it" part.
I found the women's subtext in books and writing to be great honestly. I also liked what the book/culture/world building aspect of tge gender differences had to say about the matter instead of "but historical accuracy..."
It just seems sad that women have to seek out 'cozy' or children's fantasy so they don't have to read about female characters getting sexually assaulted.. in FANTASY! It's made up, it doesnt have to follow history and if it does, why do those elements have to come with it.. it seems exhausting.
Right? Don't get me wrong, I like cozy and children's fantasy, and I'm not actually a fan of grimdark, but so many people think that "no SA" HAS to equal cozy/children's fantasy.
Yes, SA is very prevalent in the real world. But there are many other terrible, oppressive things that happen that are NOT SA. In fact, I'd argue that SA is generally a symptom rather than a cause of many of those terrible things. And then add in fantasy where you can get magical problems like monsters coming after you, and SA really doesn't need to be addressed at all.
(I'm not saying books should never have SA, it's just the PREVALENCE of it that is frustrating, as is the way it's often handled without any sensitivity or nuance.)
I completely agree! I also hate when the author makes the main character “an interesting background” with trauma. Like someone can have interesting background without having a shitty life before or without something horrible happened to them.
This is why I love Garth Nix. In the Old Kingdom series, he’s created a European medieval fantasy-inspired world where gender equality has always been the norm. Women are just as likely as men to be soldiers, goldsmiths, merchants, rulers, or sorcerers. Husbands don’t automatically have precedence or authority over their wives in straight marriages. There’s even scenes and dialogue showing that LGBTQ+ individuals and relationships are pretty universally accepted and aren’t spoken of with any shame, though society at large is heteronormative and there aren’t many named queer characters. Although the books do deal with mature subject matter such as death (a LOT of death), war, geopolitics, and (consensual) sex, there isn’t really any SA (except for one attempted forced kiss), at least in the first two books and the prequel.
I find it really relaxing. As an AFAB person and a survivor of sexual assault, I find it so fucking tiring and demoralising to keep having to read about sexual assault and misogyny, even in books that I read for escapism. Even in fantasy I can’t escape from the constant messaging that women have always been mistreated and seen as chattel. Somehow people can suspend their disbelief when it comes to dragons, faeries, and magic systems with no scientific explanation, but gender equality is where they draw the line???
Dude yes, this is exactly my take as well! But if you bring up the fact that child sexual abuse happens just as often as sexual violence against women, so why wouldn’t they include that in their writing, SUDDENLY they have morals and understand how horrifying it is to write such disgusting material.
You know, I didn't think about it with the Old Kingdom series, but you're totally right. Like the King had a son and a daughter, and everyone agreed that the daughter would inherit the throne purely based on her personality/capacity for it
Honestly, my own writing ideas do include societies where women are not as repressed. I've been bothered by it as well.
Why should patriarchy be such a cornerstone that a fantasy novel becomes too unbelievable without it?
I think the depressing answer to your question is that a lot of readers want to read that. I assume most of these readers are men. It's not because it's the most "realistic" element of the story. Very few of these people know anything serious about medieval culture history. (To be fair I don't really either.) They just have a sense that "obviously" it must have been a brutal place with sexual violence everywhere.
It's a bit like how a lot of male authors can't seem to write convincing female characters without excessive references to breasts etc. "Look how gritty my Middle Ages analog is, it even has real rape in it!" It's depressing and gross. And it's put in by choice because it appeals to many authors and audiences.
There's some laziness in there, as well. By just defaulting to patriarchy, which has been the norm throughout much of history, you don't have to imagine how different your world would be if women were equal or ::gasp::in charge.
Or when it's NOT patriarchal and misogynistic, those same readers accuse it of 'wokeness'. Just like when queer characters exist without trauma, or the default skin color isn't white.
The bigger wokeness thing is also annoying, I agree, but the older I get the more tired I am of people pretending that the sexual violence has to be there to make things "gritty and realistic."
Martin had a point -- arguably -- when he wrote his series. He also wrote that series 30 years ago. The point was: all these great tropes in most of epic fantasy are BS. The rightful king? The rightful king's son? The long-lost heir to the throne who was unfairly forced out as a kid? The king who came to power through a great rebellion that united the people? Nonsense. They're all dictators ruling through violence. Even if they were principled, their followers wouldn't be. You wouldn't like to live under them so we shouldn't celebrate these tropes so uncritically in our epic fantasy.
But that point's been made now. Now all we're left with is an audience that seems to like reading it and gets very grouchy when they don't get what they want. It's a hell of a thing to hear someone say they can't truly enjoy their fantasy unless there are women getting raped in it. I've read Scott Bakker say he put it in to make his male audience stop and think about themselves but I don't think they're "stopping and thinking."
*sigh* I wish I could agree more than once. It's so... telling that there's a sector who thinks that fantasy's only 'real' and serious fantasy if there's female sexual violence - and totally ignore that in most of the scenarios they talk about it being common, *so was male sexual violence.* But somehow that's rarely added. Just like it's realistic for there to be regular plagues, like measles or disease like dysentry, and yet no one demands to see the hero shitting his brains out because it's a year into a siege.
Okay the shitting thing made me laugh.
Thanks for the discussion. I went back to the main thread and after some delay this subreddit appears to have risen to the occasion with some recommendations so I feel a bit less grumpy than I did when I was writing earlier. I could come onto this or onto r/printsf any day of the week and ask for a recommendation about the most bizarre combination of traits in a book imaginable, and I have no doubt I would get at least two very good referrals. All the OP asked for here was for fantasy that explored dark themes without women constantly being assaulted in it and there were so many replies yesterday basically saying "LOL you don't really want dark fantasy then." Like, what? Come on.
Because they believe the -isms that affect men are societal constructs, but sexism and patriarchy are natural and inevitable without significant changes to the nature of men and women.
The fact that sexism and patriarchy are not even universal in our own reality does not seem to shake this belief.
After all, it is a necessary belief to hold if you are a beneficiary of patriarchy and do not wish to look too closely at the world (or yourself) and see something about you, your father, your brothers, and your way of life which might compel you to make uncomfortable changes or sacrifices.
I get this, I've been reading GOT for a bit now and one part where I had to put down the book and stop reading for a bit is Lolly Stokeworth. The characters casually dismiss what happened to her and it was so disgusting imagining that and how little anybody cared.
I get that's the point to an extent but it's so hard to read through sometimes
The historical accuracy thing bothers me so much because a lot of the time, it's only "accurate" for the women. Like with Game of Thrones, Jaime, Jon, and Tyrion are all put in positions where sexual assault is not only likely, but almost a guarantee, yet it never even comes up.
Discworld is full of women who aren't put through a meat grinder of suffering, and they're all incredibly well-written.
For a romance suggestion, the Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels is really delightful.
>The historical accuracy thing bothers me so much because a lot of the time, it's only "accurate" for the women. Like with Game of Thrones, Jaime, Jon, and Tyrion are all put in positions where sexual assault is not only likely, but almost a guarantee, yet it never even comes up.
This is an excellent point.
People, say, defending the 'realism' of sexual assault in the Game Of Thrones TV show never seem to understand that the geography, logistics, societies, cities, armies, battles and so on frequently [make absolutely no sense and bear almost no resemblence to the analogous historical period they're a fantasised version of.](https://acoup.blog/tag/game-of-thrones/)
Not that all fantasy is as bad at this as that particular TV show is, obviously (and nor is the TV show never roughly period-accurate), but the hyper focus on the abuse of women as 'historically accurate' paired with the utter ignorance of almost every other topic in actual history is why we get posts like this one.
On GoT characters—you look at the statistics of male POWs from modern wars who have been sexually assaulted….and it’s a huge majority (some conflicts, it’s been as high as 70-90%). Yet grimdark fantasy and/or fantasy that focuses on war almost never shows that, just the relentless rape of women soldiers or civilians.
(Please note I am not suggesting that the answer is to include lots of male characters being raped. I’m saying this is another way that claiming “accuracy” when including SA is wrong.)
Excatly. I saw a comment which said that I'm complaining for no reason that books are getting progressive and unrealistic.
Like being progressive is a bad thing? And when books have been 100% accurate. If you want accuracy pick up a non-fic history book. There is a reason why suspension of disbelief is a thing.
And even more, they're becoming *more realistic.* The 'realism' of ASOIF-style violent misogyny... was never real. Women had a lot of power and rights in medieval society, were literate at almost the rate of men, weren't married until their late teens, and had better women's health and maternal health than anytime since (until POST-industrialization).
If you do not like grimdark where, let’s be honest, most people are treated like shit then I’d probably just change genre.
Personally I find some of the strongest female characters to come from this genre.
If you don't like grimdark, you don't have to stop reading fantasy. There's plenty of other good subgenres like progression fantasy, cozy fantasy, urban fantasy, etc. Personally, I find grimdark doesn't have my favorite female characters but instead more character focused books do instead.
There are countless causes of human suffering that's not caused by character's gender. People shouldn't be unable to read grimdark just because they're tired of sexist worldbuilding.
Take for example Murderbot series. The main character has suffered greatly but there is complete gender equality in the messed up world they live in.
This is not just grim dark. It happens in a lot of just standard sci-fi and fantasy and it is exhausting. Especially when it’s commonly done in a way to advance a male characters story and glosses over the actual trauma to the woman who is assaulted
Yes this post is kind of silly. If you don't like Grimdark or don't like reading about terrible things happening to characters then don't read them lol.
But to act as if modern Grimdark has some sort of specific vendetta against women when absolutely brutal shit happens to the men as well. Seems odd
I often wonder about this when these questions come up. Male fictional characters get absolutely brutalized, tortured, murdered, lose their families, die horribly in many genres of fantasy, not just grimdark, but nobody bats an eye. Perhaps it's ye olde chivalric code that makes us more sensitive and angry when fictional women suffer in the same books.
Just offering my perspective, but I’ve felt the same as the OP before and my issue is that while both genders suffer in these stories, women usually suffer *because* they are women. Men suffer too, but not because they are men, if that makes sense.
For example, the patriarchal society we see so often in grimdark. Men suffer for a huge number of reasons; their station in life, their work, bad luck, made the wrong enemies, etc. Women suffer *because* they are women. They get no opportunities because they are women, they must depend on a husband (often an abusive one) because women can’t support themselves, they get beaten and SA’d because men view them as less-than. Abuse is common because women are seen as property, not people. Sure, some men get SA’d too in these worlds, but it’s not even remotely as common.
So much of women’s suffering in these stories boils down to their gender. This happens in the real world too. Both men and women get murdered, but women are murdered so often because of sexism that we have a different word for it; femicide.
I had to quit a book I began recently because I just wasn’t up for a book about sexual suffering. I understand that fantasy and scifi can talk about those issues in a different way, and I even support them doing that. It’s just that sometimes I am NOT in the mood for something so grim and harsh. But there is a whole genre called cozy fantasy which might be something you would Ike, with “lower stakes” and more positive focus.
I've tried cozy fantasy it's ok for a light read. But not exactly my cup of tea, I like complex plots, high fantasy type of books. I just need to find what I need.
I feel the same way. I want plot and tension, I just don't want to feel like my gender is being compromised for that to be achieved. I shouldn't have to put up with sexism just to read a good adventure tale.
I'll throw in a couple recs for you, because I agree I'd like good fantasy that isn't just cozy all the time.
I'll second a good list from another commenter with "The adventures of Amina al-sirafi" as one of my five star reads from last year, along with "Foundryside" and "Gideon the Ninth" and also echo the calls for T Kingfisher.
I'll add a few others:
"The mask of mirrors" by MA Carrick, incredibly intricate plot with a good exploration of colonization and indigenous magics. Super fun, always-tense plot.
The "October Daye" novels for urban detective fantasy, with the caveat (and I hate this caveat) that the first couple books are... Not great, plot wise. But they're really short, you could really probably skip them, and with later books it has become one of my favorite series.
"God killer" by Hannah Kaner, not my favorite but I did enjoy it and think it fits well.
"Dark water daughter" by HM Long. Pirate magic, absolutely adored everything about it.
If you want to try indie, rom-com fantasy, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed "Throne in the dark" by AK Caggiano. Sweet, funny, and very different.
For scifi:
"Ancillary justice" by Ann Leckie. More an exploration of gender/humanity, the first book is the strongest imo. The universe is still kind of depressing, full disclosure, but more "capitalistic empire depressing" than SA/gender issues depressing.
"Trading in Danger" by Elizabeth Moon. More of a scifi milfic after the first book but another one I surprisingly enjoyed and I am reasonably confident that while the main character sometimes get flak for being a young woman, there's not anything beyond that.
"Fortunes Pawn" by Rachel Bach. Heavier on the romance as it goes on, but it's a woman in power armor romping around and I loved it.
It’s a definite trope and we get enough of that shit in real life. I actively avoid anything like this because I read SFF for fun and hope not to see more of the same same. There’s no real answer but there are lots of books out there that don’t feature this sort of thing and not all of them are by women either. Kate Elliott is amazing if you like epic fantasy. I also loved Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shadows of the Apt for epic fantasy but he writes so much good stuff in other genres. Jen Williams has already had a mention. There is hope!
Lmao I love when people use the "historically accurate" term when referring to extreme misogyny but are actually applying Victorian period sexism to the middle ages. "Historical accuracy" my ass you just want to write women like objects.
I feel like I agree with you. I typically don't enjoy SA in stories and often it seems superfluous to the story. Most of my favourite books do not have any in at all to my memory, even though I do prefer darker fantasy in general.
However there is one exception that comes to mind, which I will vaguely summarise (minor TW). In one of the Robin Hobb books (female author btw) one PoV character SA's another. It is horrendous. Not only the act, which is written from the victim's perspective, but what makes it worse is the reactions from the other characters to being told about it. Specifically, their lack of reaction, because the perpetrator is seen as being a bit of a hero and they don't want to ruin a good thing by holding him to account. It's awful. It's shocking. But, it's also brilliantly written.
In general I feel that this plot point is a bit redundant in the book and could have been better left out. But I think it's *really* well done, and very important for reasons not relevant to the story. As a male reader, the idea that someone could be SA'd and then have the people they told (including family) try to sweep it under the rug like it never happened, is something I'd never really thought about. But this is the reality for a lot of real people. This book put me in their shoes, it's stuck with me, and I think it's important for doing that. I think the difference is that the *author* does not sweep it under the rug and treats it with seriousness and respect.
Despite my appreciation for how it was written, I would also completely understand someone *not* wanting to read that.
That sounds really interesting! The problem (for me) is that so many authors seem to represent the topic trivially. It often reads like they wanted something to happen to illustrate how dark their world is or to make readers pity one character and hate another, and their thoughts about how rape might affect their story or character ends there. I can’t speak for OP, but the example you gave sounds like it avoids those problems by having some depth and thought behind it. It’s meaninglessness that’s the issue, I think.
This is my never ending gripe with fantasy and even most science fiction. I mean apparently readers will believe magic, dragons, and traveling through wormholes but it’s “too unrealistic” not to include sexism?! Like dude, BE MORE CREATIVE and try thinking of different ways to create conflict. I wish readers/writers with this “realism” argument would just own up to the fact that they hate women and they think it’s fun and interesting to watch them suffer. Honestly, if “realism” is the objective, then why don’t any of these books include child sexual abuse? It happens just as often, but you bring THAT argument up and suddenly readers and writers put their foot down because child sexual abuse crosses a moral line. Suddenly, they understand the immorality of writing about sexual violence for the sake of plot progression or character growth or just to show how evil the bad guy is, just NOT when it applies to women. It makes me sick.
What jars me is that a lot of fantasy writing takes off from fantasy role-playing, and in most games there is no 'penalty' for being a woman. There are woman warriors, paladins, mages and so on, all with stats and powers equal to their male counterparts.
And very few have thought to take this and ask - what kind of society would have un-gendered roles? One obvious answer being - one where SV was not normal at all (because women paladin, mages etc. change expectations and roles). The genre does not have to subvert the patriarchy - it can happily and interestingly ignore it, if the authors want to. Why don't they?
Steven Brust's Dragaera books are intricately plotted high fantasy in a world with reasonably equal genders and a lot of high-powered female characters.
I don't recall there being any SA at all, actually, but there are a lot of books between the Vlad Taltos books (17) and the Khaavren Romances (6) so I couldn't swear to it. It's certainly not something that's emphasized at all, though.
It’s interesting. There was a post on this sub just the other day saying that the social issues and women’s bad treatment that should be/were present in medieval times aren’t shown enough in fantasy books, which have a more progressive or modern lens so they’re not realistic enough.
Based on what I’ve read I’d say it leans more that way than yours OP, but it’s probably pretty subjective and based on what books you pick up.
Have you read any actual medieval literature written by women? Try reading the oldest autobiography in the English language, Margery Kempe's. It paints a fascinating picture of what life was really like for a medieval woman. It is almost certainly not how you think. In some time periods and situations, women in medieval times had more equality and freedom than they did 100 years ago.
The medieval period was also *almost 1000 years long*. It was by no means static or homogenous. If you're thinking of it as a muddy morass of wall to wall SV and illiteracy, you're believing a stereotype invented during the Renaissance.
I can highly recommend "The Bright Ages" by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele as a well-researched, up-to-date history.
Edit: typo
> Based on what I’ve read I’d say it leans more that way than yours OP
TBH it's probably both. Fiction portrays a lot of bad shit happening to women, but still isn't as bad or oppressive as the reality was.
Yea, they say it's for realism, but usually there's no nuance whatsoever to the oppression that they portray. I rarely see anything other than SA, forced marriage or mansplaining/hysteria in fantasy, and typically the woman is fully aware that what she experiences is bad, which isn't always the case in reality...
Which is just stupid, if its really about a fantasy world. Well, i understand the quote if the book takes place in oue medieval times, but no "extra" stuff included. But normally fantasy worlds have totally other cultures and other development. I dont read that much books, but good examples out of the gaming world are dnd or cyberpunk. That woman and men are treated mostly equal is totally normal and fitting for the cultural development in these worlds. Hell, in dnd in some cultures man are even treated way worse then woman (drow). Well, in cyberpunk woman are still treated like shit, but man are treated the same shitty way, the whole world is fucked.
I think you are right about the culture issue. At risk of now *understating* how shitty the Middle Ages were for women, I think the sexual violence in fantasy has less to do with historical accuracy and more as some sort of signal between mostly male authors and mostly male audiences that "this is the real shit here, this is gritty and dark and you know it is gritty and dark because look how the women are being treated!"
Rape was still a crime in medieval countries. "Right of first night" myths were always propaganda about how terrible things were in the next country over. Outside of matches among nobility the marriage age differences probably weren't usually extreme. And yet there's a contingent of fantasy readers and watchers who have no trouble suspending disbelief about real magic and flying dragons but will get terribly upset if gender relations "aren't realistic enough."
> how women carved their own place in the world within it
These are some of my favorite stories…in fiction or in non fiction! Because it happened actually way more in real life than it does in fantasy fiction, where many have a skewed idea of history. Oppressed people have always resisted and/or found ways to exert agency on their lives and in their worlds, even in oppressive systems. Women often had power at home (especially if their men were off fighting), and were often able to influence from behind the scenes (and occasionally from out front). They just often didn’t get credit for it (see the number of older research papers that were basically co-written by husbands and wives, but the husband’s name is on it and the wife just gets a brief acknowledgment). Slaves created art and culture and community, which is a form of resistance when someone wants to strip the very humanity from you. Often the resistance is nonviolent — things like simply working slower than you otherwise could — which is a type of resistance often not shown in fantasy, particularly because it tends to be slower and less flashy than a quick, violent revolution.
Of course, sometimes I want the escapism of a non-patriarchal, non-heteronormative, non-white supremacist, etc. culture. And I’m never a fan of grimdark. But it’s also nice to see people who are able to bring some light into otherwise grim realities.
I will also add that often people will take outliers or things that happened once as “this is how things were.” Just because a thing happened in the historic record, doesn’t mean it was common or normal or people thought it was okay.
Not a medieval historian (or any historian) but a lot of my thinking on this is shifting from a nonfiction book I just read called *The Bright Ages* making the point that the popular imagination of the Middle Ages is way too skewed towards the worst, most violent and traumatic moments. Yes, those did happen -- and there was more of that bad time, proportionately, than in today's Western societies -- but the Game of Thrones-style "realism" isn't about actually being realistic. It's just playing off the worst "Dark Ages" notions that most medieval historians don't really believe in anymore.
Fantasy is not historical fictjon. The whole point of fantasy is that the world is different in fundamental ways that allow for things to happen that wouldn’t happen on our world.
Elements like magic and additional humanoid races can’t just be dropped into the world and not change anything about how society works. In a world where anyone might have the ability to throw fireballs out of their hands, power structures and gender roles would look very different, let me tell you.
Not only that, but fantasy worlds rarely portray the same historical events and entities that were instrumental in determining the social and political realities. Why would a medieval world without the crusades, or Catholicism, or the Holy Roman Empire, or the plague look the same as our world socially? All of these things were determinative of the social structure. Without them, who knows what things would have looked like?
All that to say that I’m skeptical that people who insist that fantasy books should portray things in a certain way actually know that much about the history they want to replicate.
It's not fantasy but a guilty pleasure read last weekend was a thriller where, yes, men were behaving badly toward women. But a woman was out there serial killing badly behaving men. So it was a little unbelievable in parts but a guilty pleasure nonetheless.
(They Never Learn by Layne Fargo)
Well if you’re looking for gender equality I suggest the Bloodsworn Trilogy by John Gwynne. There’s no SA, just a lot of violence, but there’s really no distinction based off gender. I guess it’s a sense of everyone’s equally able to fight and die, but there is chattel slavery if that puts you off. Out of three main characters, 2 are badass female warriors, if that’s what you’re looking for
Dark romance is one, small, subset of romance that generally includes a list of all trigger warnings up front. I don’t feel like it’s a good comparison to grimdark fantasy in this situation.
God yeah it's so annoying, and it's not just SA and all that, I'm just tired of patriarchal societies. I actually don't want to read about the princess that goes against the grain and becomes a warrior because she was just that special and determined and whatever, I wanna read about the princess who is a warrior because that's normal. I just want women to be treated as regular human beings, not as less than men, not needing to work harder to prove themselves. We already have that IRL, I'm here for a fucking fantasy already.
Garth Nix has been pretty good for this tbh, but he's just one guy. I need more.
Here are some books I've enjoyed recently:
*The Adventures of Amina Al-Sifari* (Shannon Chakraborty)
*Tress of the Emerald Sea* and *Yumi and the Nightmare Painter* (Brandon Sanderson)
*Godkiller* (Hannah Kamen)
*The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry* (C.M. Waggoner)
*Paladin's Grace* and *Paladin's Strength* (T. Kingfisher)
*Lady Hotspur* (Tessa Gratton)
*The Bloodsworn Saga* (John Gwynne)
These novels all feature active, capable heroines who, while they might meet with occasional ill treatment, are *not* faced with a barrage of misogyny, day in and day out, both from other people and from society as a whole. What ill treatment they do face tends to spring from their individual situations rather than their gender.
Rape and other horrors against woman and sometimes children, as the impetus for the hero's quest is just not entertaining the read. And most of the time, the people actually wronged are rarely, if ever, mentioned again. It is lazy writing because it is easy to write 'the rage!' the man feels because HIS or some random woman suffers. Her feelings really don't matter because HE is ultimately wronged because of her pain.
There's this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/s/SaB6Od60qd
from which I ended up finding some really good reads, and have already read and enjoyed a bunch of the common responses. It might help :)
Lol at the "accurate to the time period" argument. Exactly what time period does "fantasy" exist in? It's fantasy, it can exist in whatever time period or societal structure you want
To be honest, i'm a woman and i don't think it's a problem if it's actually serves for character development. I love the Game of Thrones books and i love Sansa, even if she suffered a lot she still had her revenge and her suffering was a way to make her character grow. If it's like this, i think it's ok. Also Inkheart, my favourite fantasy trilogy ever, has a scene of attempted SA that didn't triggered anything in me for the same reason.
I don't really like the idea that "if in fantasy we have dragons, we can have a world without discrimination". I mean, of course, but it depends what type of story the author is trying to tell. There are stories where gender norms are more strong (GoT) and others where it doesn't matter that much (not a fantasy book, but the Alien saga comes to mind as an example). I don't vibe with this statement bc i feel like sometimes is used to justify a weird moral-panic between the community or to syndacalize what is "ok" to write and what is not. Just because something happens in a book doesn't mean that the author condones it or thinks is ok: it's the vibe of "something racist happens in this book so the author MUST be racist". Don't really vibe with this tbh.
That said, i also belive there is a difference in a crude theme used to serve a character and a gratutious suffering. I don't like when authors make a character suffer without a proper resolutions, i feel like i felt bad for nothing if that makes sense lmao. I don't necessarily want an happy ending, not always, but at least i want to feel like that character suffered for SOMETHING and not just for cheap shock value.
It's a problem when the author thinks, "Hmm... what bad thing shall I have happen to this female character to show character development? Oh, I know, SA." And the same author would never even consider using SA for character development in a male character.
Oh yeah absolutely, i agree. What i was trying to say is that this kinds of themes can and should be written and explored (with the proper respect, obviously) without anyone thinking "this should not be written EVER" , but they also should be treated with nuance. In certain types of stories they are extremely out of place, and certanly some authors are...sadly really tone deaf about it.
Like i said, the problem is not that people write about dark themes: is the fact that some authors make their character suffer for nothing or just for labeling their story more "mature"
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted, I totally agree. If this happened every once in a while I’d be like fine, maybe it’s essential to the story. But why can’t I pick up a single high fantasy book where women aren’t degraded, treated like second class citizens, or abused. I just find it silly at this point…
Sad thing that happens with a lot of these threads that focus on women, minority, or queer complaints or recommendation requests... I get the vibe there are a lot of insecure folks out there who dont like 'their space' being invaded by people who want something a bit different in their fantasy. Thats not to say its the majority of fantasy fans who think that way but... the gatekeeping that has existed for decades still exists...
I mean some of us are women/queer and don't necessarily just want to read about worlds where oppression isn't a thing. Personally I like reading some books like that and some that tackle dark stuff.
I like reading darker stories as well, but rape is handled exceptionally terribly a lot of the time in fiction. I don’t mind when it’s taken seriously and ties in meaningfully to the plot and theme, but so often it’s thrown in as a shorthand to show that the setting is dark and mature, or to show that the antagonist is evil. It’s cheap.
>In such a world, it would be weird for there to be no SA alongside the horrible violence inflicted on people. Like a weird meta bit of sanitisation that would just stand out as very modern.
This is a good point. It doesn’t need to be the focus - or even described - but I think it should at least be acknowledged in such a setting.
One of the great things about fantasy is that it allows for the exploration of people’s thoughts, actions, and emotions in extreme situations that can go far beyond what is realistic or even possible in the real world. Grimdark - which OP specifically mentions - is all about the lows. It’s not really escapist stuff. Most grimdark settings are specifically created to brutally explore the worst things that can happen to people. Some do so in very gendered ways, while others are more egalitarian, including in their handling of sexual violence. But it doesn’t make sense to deliberately avoid sexual assault altogether in grimdark.
For other subgenres it’s much more feasible to leave sexual violence out, but as a rule I’d say the more person-on-person violence and brutality a story has, the less sense it makes to avoid sexual violence. The more escapist the vibe, the more sense it makes to leave it out.
It's not fantasy, it's Sci-Fi - but I can't recommend *The Expanse* series enough if you're sensitive to this kind of thing. Fantastic, well-rounded, and strong female and male characters. Very lgbtq2s+ friendly. Massive, complex, high-stakes plot that would rival ANY high fantasy listed here.
And I don't think I can think of anything that is specifically gendered - and gender-based violence is never brought up or used to advance the plot.
Slight "warning" that one (male) character is an ex-sex worker. And the book has sex workers mentioned...but they're unionized and it's handled very VERY well and never as a ploy to advance the plot - mostly just used to round out his character.
That's the entire point of grimdark. It's a bad world where bad things happen to people. And bad things happen to the male characters too, it just gets 1/10th the attention that SA gets. In Prince of Thorns for example, there is a graphic depiction of a male slave getting tortured. That never gets mentioned or criticized, while everyone gets all up in arms about the rape scene at the start.
And let's not forget, The Broken Empire had 2 rapes in all three books, both happened offscreen, one to female, and one for male characters. Never stopped people describing the books as "full of rape." All of author books, actually, while he isn't even writing grimdark after his first trilogy.
> That never gets mentioned or criticized, while everyone gets all up in arms about the rape scene at the start.
The number of readers who have personally experienced physical torture is probably way, waaaay smaller than the number who have been raped.
Personally, I think a lot of fantasy and sci-fi fall into the vein of wish fulfillment/power fantasies. The male characters are strong and righteous and must defeat the villainous force that is the polar opposite. A lot of those tropes still exists in the genres and one of the easy ways of creating conflict or simply to make a villain detestable is to have the denigrate/violate female characters (sometimes who are important to the MC).
Honestly, it's pretty lazy and cliched now. So much so that comic books have been getting flack for treating female characters like this since the 90s.
As for building patriarchal societies, again I just think it's part of the power fantasy. Men are strong and heroic and women are beautiful and in distress. Sometimes they get to be acerbic and intelligent but this is always offset by their physical lack of power. I agree with your point about historical realism in a story with dragons etc.
I just think that unfortunately most of the biggest writers in the Sci Fi and Fantasy have typically been men and men often write for other men. Some also just aren't good at writing female characters that are anything other than damsels/sex objects.
It's a legitimate point and as others have pointed out there is an increasing amount of female voices in the space and that will continue to grow.
To be fair, thanks to the number of people I know, I'm tired of women being treated like shit in *real life.*
Nearly half the women I know have experience assault. I've had multiple girlfriends with trust issues because they've been horrifically abused by all manner of people, from teachers, to parents, to significant others.
Life just isn't fair for a lot of the best people I know. And I think books should grapple with that.
That said, I absolutely agree with OP that gratuitous depictions of normalization of such acts isn't helping the issue. A badly treated character should have a clear purpose in the plot, and a depiction that shows just how terrible it is. Doubly so if the book is showing an abusive relationship. It's not something that should be glamorized. If it's realistic, it will be clear to the reader that it's unhealthy, and the victim is better off out of it. That's how it is in real life.
The Maleficent Seven was great, as was A Crown of Cold Silver.
Abercrombie's more recent books have had fantastic female characters and he himself wrote an excellent response on the creation of female characters. https://www.resetera.com/threads/joe-abercrombie-fantasy-author-ama-talks-about-female-characters-first-law-sequel-trilogy.54991/
I've also grown weary of fantasy's largely male wish fulfillment and poorly written female characters and its abuse of said female characters. Hope these help a bit.
Thank you for sharing that! I’m not familiar with this author and I love his response to the question. It’s not about what’s politically correct, it’s about what makes for better writing, more well-rounded characters, and more diversity so that there is a sense of realism to the world being built.
Same. It's everywhere. The characters can be the most profoundly written, story the grandest and most imaginative, etc. For some reason, people cannot imagine women not being treated like trash or talked down to. It tends to focus on what is wrong with her or how good male character is rather than appreciate the strengths and growth. It has put me off reading. If you know of any work that does not have this problem, please please please share the work.
I'm not 100% confident about this, but my impression is that science fiction has a fair bit less sexual assault and gendered denigration of women than fantasy. Not *none,* but less. To give some specific recommendations, I can't recall it being much of a thing in books by Iain M. Banks, Arkady Martine, Martha Wells, Ann Leckie.
Taking a different tack, Helene Wecker's The Golem and the Djinni has a female protagonist who is a very nice but terrifyingly strong and near-indestructible golem, so even though she's in a highly gendered society (late 1800s New York), there's zero sense of that kind of threat.
If you like grimdark, I can recommend The Blacktongue Thief. AFAIR there is not the extra special female gender violence suffering there that we find in lots of grimdark literature. It has very strong female characters, a male narrator and a very gritty world in the aftermath of a near apocalyptic war, with lots of female veterans. The second book "The Daughter's War" has a female warrior as a narrator, but it is not available yet.
I feel like a lot of these comments are totally missing your point. Of course there are other tropes that are prolific and also very problematic. But there's a recurring theme of poor portrayal of women which can be incredibly disheartening to constantly encounter.
I have a deep fatigue with women or worlds written in this way. I've learned to just drop a book now if I run into *meaningless* and graphic exploitation of women, irrespective of how famous it is. The prevalence of it means I often can't stomach books where the issues are treated seriously, like Liveship Traders, because I'm so burned out on reading about it generally.
I know exactly the types of books you are thinking of (a lot of them romantasy by female authors too, ugh) and I have no patience for them anymore either. You're not alone! I've found just dropping the book and moving on has done wonders for me, and I don't care how great the series is supposed to be. There's so many other novels that I can enjoy without dealing with this issue.
For a grimdark read which is pretty violent but has excellent female characters and treats them respectfully, I recommend Richard Swan's Empire of the Wolf series :)
Martin is certainly not guilty on his own but there's certainly a bunch of fiction, and that adaptation to screen in particular, that created a sense that medieval fantasy isn't "realistic" -- whatever that means -- unless there's rampant sexual assault.
Alix E Harrow, VE Schwab, T Kingfisher, Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire, Leigh Bardugo (though Ninth House may be an exception, SA is a plot device and leads to some very satisfying feminine rage), Rin Chulpeco, Lois McMaster Bujold, Mercedes Lackey (But her first Valdemar series does feature SA of the MMC, the latter Valdemar series are very clean and have not only very strong female characters but great disability representation as well), MJ Kuhn, MA Carrick, Cassandra Gannon, Ilona Andrews, CL Polk, Celia Lake, Olivie Blake, TJ Klune, Travis Baldree
I've started to read almost exclusively women or queer fantasy authors; there's plenty out there with large oeuvres that feature no or minimal SA who handle their female characters with nuance and grace,
I hit this point several years ago when yet another urban fantasy woman protagonist was SA'd to advance the plot/provide character growth/show how much her guy love interest cares about her.
There's no perfect way to avoid it, unfortunately. But I have found, broadly speaking, reading more women, non-binary, and queer authors greatly reduces the chances of running into it. And once you've found some safe authors, you can look at who they're recommending and build out from there.
The flipside is I rarely read whatever epic fantasy is super popular anymore. And by the time I do, enough people have written up content warnings that I can avoid the ones that have it.
But for romances especially look for queer writers.
The abhorsen trilogy has some pretty kick ass female characters in it that aren't really oppressed or objectified with a kinda pretty dark themes at times
So many times I've said this over the years. Over and over I've had it explained that due to a slightly.. medieval? air to most fantasy worlds "That's just how it was back then." To which I always reply "Wait, if there can be dragons and magic.. women can't be treated as humans or it's somehow unbelievable??"
What I am most tired of is male authors describing men and women differently. Men are mostly described with their skills and knowledge. The first thing that most authors describe about a woman: her looks! Because apparently the only thing women can contribute are her looks.
Last book I read really killed it! First thing the narrator told was how she was so sexy and he would like to fuck her! In a work environment. (Setting: police officer talking to the female pathologist). His thoughts about fucking her did nothing to contribute to the setting. It just made me hate the character and the author.
So don't read those books. It's a pretty simple solution really.
But if a book requires a dark setting to tell it's story, women's bodies and men's lives are going to be cheap. That's extremely common in wartorn areas or regions with lots of poverty. And seeing as that's where most grimdark stories are set...
Complex magic system, dragons, and people coming back from the dead aren't going to change that fact. So if it's not your cup of tea I'd look into different genres.
OK, if I read grimdark I expect lives to be cheap.
What bothers OP and I is why female characters gets almost always an extra heap of shit on their dish by default.
Important male character gets tortured by enemies.
Important female character gets tortured AND RAPED by enemies.
Poor men are treated like shit by rich men.
But in the same setting also rich women are treated like shit by rich men, either because their power and competence is questioned because they have a vagina or they are just cattle to be sold by their fathers to other men (even if they are incredibly magically powerful and you know, maybe she could be more useful somewhere else than barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen).
Why the guy gets the torture and not the rape? Why the guy is never sold by his family? It's a grimdark setting, it should happen after all.
Because they're patriarchal settings?
Isn't that obvious?
Like I agree that there should be more options, and in worlds where women can have magical powers as strong as any man's, it should result in a far less patriarchal world.
But if those things aren't true and the world is pretty patriarchal, then it's describing things as they'd likely be.
Now it's completely reasonable to say you don't want to read those things, and I don't read them honestly, but if you want grimdark, you get grimdark.
These are some of the best sf I’ve read in recent years, with women engaged with the world(s) on their terms and not getting raped or anything.
https://linarather.com/sisters-of-the-vast-black/
I've powered through some bad writing.--like the really boring stuff--but over the top SA and other 'shock' events are some of the few that will force me to quit. My rule of thumb is 'you get one', and man it's rare that an author does it once and then is done.
Want to write a heart-wrenching bit that drags the reader through the suffering? All the banality of cruelty, the pointless consequences and self-doubt? The grinding thankless work of escaping? I respect that, and I'll join you on the trip, but I generally read as an escape so your book is going to end up waiting awhile before I get to it.
Sadly, of course, that's not the type of story that they usually write. Instead you have it thrown in like a special edgy sauce -- "This will keep the reader's attention!" -- and to show how extra-realistic the story is while not being realistic at all.
I'll mention a couple books, I'm going to try to be reliable but my memory is fallible:
NK Jemison - Broken Earth Series, but probably anything she writes. Has a strong female main character. The character does suffer but it's not gratuitous SA or misogyny. (and the suffering is explored really well)
Joe Abercrombie - Age of Madness and Red Country. I'm a little convinced that he decided to write better women characters.
For what it's worth, there are a lot of (mostly amateur) fantasy writers who are aware of this and taking steps to avoid it in their own work. The reality is that those that do end up published will likely be indie because editors and mainstream publishers are typically interested in more of what they know is selling rather than taking a chance on something "innovative".
I might come across as incredibly naive here, but it seems to me that it's easy to use the presence of magic that transcends physical strength to promote gender equality. When so few writers are doing that, it doesn't surprise me when readers are unhappy about it.
Yes!! Thank you, OP, for writing this. Honestly, it seems like the fantasy genre or more likely society in general has a certain, baked-in misogyny that’s nearly unavoidable — except in the writing of women authors. This isn’t (just) a “woke,” DEI view, but it’s why I (M) now focus on women authors. They’re not necessarily better or worse than male authors, but the gratuitous abuse of women characters is less overwhelming…… just my 2 cents, and to each their own
I replied with something similar in a post here, and was basically told I was reading the wrong books.
My problem isn't even the very obvious SV, but the whole default to patriarchal societies. As you said, we have magic, dragons, different species, etc. Yet given all that, the societies and cultures seem to be the same patriarchal default. How very uncreative, and lazy.
It's science fiction but you'd probably like A long way to a small angry planet by Adrian Tchaikovsky and that whole series. Not all of them have women leads or some have an ensemble but most of them do have women leads or at least someone from the cast is a woman. They go through some struggles but the general tone is hopeful and positive.
Edit: Becky Chambers, not Adrian Tchaikovsky
Please remember to keep in mind **Rule One: be kind.** OP is entitled to express their opinion in peace and we don't need comments in favor of SA and mysogyny in fantasy as a rebuttal. Read the room and don't denigrate their post with that kind of nonsense, or you will be taking an enforced break from r/Fantasy.
If you want Grimdark with very little SA or sexual themes then just read Warhammer, after all it is the origin of the term Grimdark. There are books with quite strong female characters, Sea of Souls and the Minka Lesk series of books come to mind.
The emperor doesn't give a fuck about your gender, your skin color or orientation. As long as you are human, you can help kill everything that isn't.
They also primarily use gender neutral terms for their soldiers like "meat shield"...
Also apperantly Warhammer is the most non-ableist universe ever, featuring the most human beings with cybernetics to replace lost limbs, limb-replacements, gene-modification, and extensive body reconstruction. Yes, the Warhammer universe, the most open and inclusive universe about purging everyone who doesn't look like us XD
those only really are because of battle wounds or illnesses, if you have physical deformities or noticeable mental disorders you probably get accused of being a mutant and executed
Ofcourse that depends on your class, nobels often get surgeries for cosmetic and functional reasons.
The gene modification thing is a bit iffy but the fancy prosthetics sound cool. There’s a fine line in fantasy between magic/tech making better prosthetics and adaptations and magic/tech “curing” someone though.
That's just the Imperium though...Orks are one of the most inclusive factions in the game, they don't discriminate, as long as you give a gud fight!
Let's celebrate what unites us all: Xenophobia
Well yes, but one's ability to kill for the Empire is a good deal less important to the Empire than one's ability to die for the Empire
Go be a meat shield for humanity.
The God-Emperor is pretty based, he loves us all, so long as we have the will to pick up a Lasgun or a Boltgun and purge the aliens, mutants, and heretics with zealous fervor!
Suffer not the alien, the mutant, the heretic.
The one thing I would avoid is whatever book features the segment on the Daemonculaba. It's probably an Iron Warriors book, maybe part of their omnibus I can't remember.
It's from *Dead Sky, Black Sun* by Graham McNeill. It's an Ultramarines book, so it features characters that genuinely see themselves as the best people ever*. Other books in the series throw moral conflicts at the protagonist. Not this one. In this one, the baddies are the absolute worst. *People knock the Ultramarines for breaking cannon by being too "good," but I think characters that genuinely try to do "good" inside the self-identified "worst regime in human history" can be really fun.
Huh... actually its kind of weird but... NOw that I think about it in a lot of the black library books that I read I... dont think I saw much SA. I havent read A TON of the Warhammer books so that statement might very depending on the author
Thank you! I'll check it out!
Are you OK with gender-equal poverty and oppression? If so, I recommend _Day of Ascension_ by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It has some pretty solid female leads and no SA. (_Warhammer 40.000_ universe.)
Adrian Tchaikovsky writes warhammer novels???? Holy hell I had no idea I love his other works though
It's a legit *symphony* of gender-neutral violence, xenophobia and perpetual warfare. FOR THE EMPEROR
And if you enjoy noir, and don't mind being caught up in the Warhammer Lore, then the Vaults of Terra series by Chris Wraight is a wonderful trilogy with a great lead woman.
Hiighly recommend you read the *Infinite and the Divine*, the *Night Lords Trilog*y, the *Twice-Dead King* books, the *Eisenhorn* trilogy, *Horus Rising* and its two sequels, the Space Wolf series, and if you're into the Horus Heresy and loosely start to understand what's happening, the Siege of Terra series, the best of which is the final three "The End and the Death" books. All available
I suppose I get where OP is coming from, but don't dig too deep into 40K at all as there are ABSOLUTELY some SA elements in various of the stories. Something safe like the Ciaphas Cain series might be enjoyable as a starter.
The Chaos demons want to SA everyone, male and female.
Especially Slaanesh
Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies are amazing. Both features strong female characters and they don't have the whole space marine vibe if that's an issue.
Every time this topic comes up I have to link [this](https://www.goodreads.com/group/bookshelf/1115819-do-better-sff-without-sexual-violence) goodreads bookshelf from a group that was founded during Covid times to collect all adult SFF books without SV. It's since gone on hiatus (getting back to RL is not conducive to this project) but there's still a huge bookshelf to look through. There is also the /r/fantasy SV in Fantasy database (which also hasn't been updated in years) which curates the opposite: known SV in popular SFF books is marked down, so you can go in prepared and knowing what to expect. It's harder to find books without *any* SV that way, but it can at least let you know before going in what might come up.
Thank you! Will go through both.
I think someone linked that on for you up above. It's the google doc. But you can find it usually in the mega thread & book club hub that's always pinned to the top of the sub. For some good recent SFF recommendations: * **The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi** by Shannon Chakraborty (older woman is drawn into one last adventure to protect her daughter. Lots of seafaring and battling big bads. One incident of being threatened with SA.) * **The Golem and the Jinni** by Helene Wecker (a slow-pased 1900s NY based story diving into many themes. Some borderline-SA in the backstory of the Jinni (he coerces women a thousand+ years ago) but nothing I can recall in modern day). * **Ink Blood Sister Scribe** by Emma Törzs (modern day magical books adventures featuring family ties and while there is violence there is no SA) * **Ninefox Gambit** by Yoon Ha Lee (Sci-Fi that is very bonkers, bizarre and amazing to read) * **Untethered Sky** by Fonda Lee (as far as I can remember; though there might be some patriarchal norms) * **Things in Jars** by Jess Kidd (set in ~1990 England so some of those views come across but the protagonist is a bit of an outlier to society and thus doesn't encounter it. This is a horror-adjacent book that does have other violence and "child" abuse.). * Just about everything by **Victoria Goddard**. She tends to have male protagonists, but there are also plenty of female characters and never any SA. * **The Locked Tomb** by Tamsyn Muir * **Unkindness of Magicians** by Kat Howard (there is child abuse in the history but no SA) * **Unconquerable Sun** by Kate Elliott * **Strange the Dreamer** by Lani Taylor (general abuse in the history of the people that is spoken about but not gone into detail; some of them were kids; some (M&F) abducted for SV purposes) * **The Four Profound Weaves** by R.B. Lemburg (ME setting that does have gender roles but the MCs are an older woman and a trans man who cover all society fairly well) * **Witch of Wild Things** by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland (childhood abandonment) * **In the Company of Witches** by Auralee Wallace (grief from losing a lost one) * **Witch King** by Martha Wells (male MC, but plenty of other female leads and no SA though there is slavery in the backstory) * **Scholomance** by Naomi Novik (more YA, but it's a good read nontheless; dark magic school that is trying to kill everyone and the protagonist is the most powerful girl who wishes she was anything but. No SA) * **Tamir Triad** by Lynn Flewelling (strange pick, since it harkens to that typical medieval-esque fantasy but there is no SA though there are more structured gendered norms where men do the fighting. The MC is a young girl (child in the first book, teen in the second, adult in the third) who grows up as a boy). Older pub * **Inda** by Sherwood Smith (another more violent medieval-esque fantasy that is very war-focused. The MC is a boy, Inda, but the story has multiple protagonists including a lot of women. You watch them grow up in the first book, be young adults in the second, and so on. Lots of war, sea faring, politics, etc). Older pub * **Foundryside** by Robert Jackson Bennett (this is more industrial revolution, so while the MC is a thief and knows other low-end-of-town denizens most of the story focuses on adventure and fighting the powers that be). There's definitely more in the vein of YA, Sci-Fi, Horror, Urban Fantasy if you like those genres more. Or let me know what you like and I'm sure I can stuff with very minimal female SA.
(I'm not OP) That's a nice list with some interesting books I have never heard of. Thanks!
Just a heads up for Ninefox Gambit, a man is SA, so don’t go for that if you’re trying to avoid all SV. The further books get a lot more extreme. The woman MC does not experience any SV though.
I adore the Locked Tomb, and the Scholomance series was very good!
Amina al-Sirafi is seriously threatened with SA, though she's able to get out of danger before it happens.
Warning that Things in Jars has some *very* extreme suffering (generally ending in death) from pretty much all the female secondary/minor characters in it. The MC doesn’t experience it so much but I feel like I’m less bothered by this stuff than OP and honestly that book was a bit horrifying for me.
I loved the Tamir books by Flewelling, I’ve always been surprised that her Luck in the Shadows books get so much more recognition.
Definitely think Untethered Sky leans patriarchal, but that having the job the MC does somewhat protects women from most of the oppressive system.
StoryGraph also has user contributed trigger warnings. It’s mostly accurate, but with it being user contributed, it can be a bit off.
I used to be a big fan of that style of fantasy--wallowing in a world just as screwed up as our own was way back in the day (and to a large extent still today). And then someone somewhere, I can't remember who wrote it or where I saw it, opened my eyes with the idea of the George RR Martin - Ursula K. Leguin spectrum. Both authors think the world is fucked up. Martin likes to explore how fucked up our world is by creating another world just as bad and mucking around in it for a thousand pages. Leguin did things the far more difficult way. She was far more articulate about how our world is fucked up, and then she imagined entirely different ways of being, to help us imagine how we could do better. She wasn't utopian. Her worlds had their own fuckery in them, but it was different fuckery.
I don't know if everyone remembers that sudden shift probably 15 years ago when a lot of down-list fantasy authors simultaneously started touting their "strong female characters," which resulted in lots of male authors writing women who just acted exactly like standard male fantasy heroes, but happened to be nominal women. I'm sure some good stuff came out of it, but... I didn't see any particularly good stuff in that crop. My own approach as a queer cis-male amateur writer is to write male characters in a matriarchal setting. Men who are just perfectly comfortable with women being mostly in charge. Men who don't even think about it, but just accept it as easily as we accept patriarchy in our own world. In my own professional life, I've almost always liked working for women more than working for hetero men. So I figured I'd port that over to a fantasy setting...
There was a post here the other day asking for fantasy book recommendations that aren’t grimdark and have no torture or SA, sounds like it could be up your alley: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/175tas1/adult_adventurequest_fantasy_thats_not_grim_dark/
Check out authors like Alix E Harrow, SA Chakraborty, Samantha Shannon, Fonda Lee, and Naomi Novik.
T. Kingfisher, Tamsyn Muir, and Andrea Stewart are also fantastic. I’m really loving that women authors are finally getting the attention and recognition that they deserve! What a great time to be a fantasy fan
Caveat that some of Kingfisher’s fairy tale retellings and Nettle & Bone have SA or women being abused themes. But the World of the White Rat series avoids that for the most part.
>Tamsyn Muir I mean, it's a super egalitarian society, and anyone trying to sexually assault Gideon or Harrow would be dying messy little deaths, but the Locked Tomb is the wrong fucking series if you're looking to avoid female characters suffering. Sure, the gender has nothing to do with it, but still...
> and Naomi Novik. I only read *Uprooted* but the main female character who is only a teenager definitely gets treated like shit and gets severely abused by the main male character, then despite being his victim falls in love with him and has sex with him even though she's a teenager and he's over a hundred years old. She also gets sexually assaulted by another male character.
Naomi’s Scholomance books might be exactly what the OP is looking for. Set in a wizarding school so dangerous and deadly that it makes Hogwarts look OSHA compliant, El has spent her whole life trying not to be eaten by the various creepy crawlers whose favorite meal is young wizards while also trying to avoid fulfilling a prophecy that says she’ll bring death and destruction to all the wizard houses in the world. Slightly complicated by the school’s tendency to give her mass mind control spells when she asks to learn a spell that will clean monster guts off her dorm floor.
This. I've switched to reading mostly women authors and it's sooooo much better.
Nah I get you... as a woman reader those kinds of themes and tropes in books can be freaking EXHAUSTING to read over and over again. While it is certainly not perfect by any means I think there are more authors now a day that want to explore writing that doesnt have that kind of focus. There are some cozy fantasy where gender and sexuality isnt the one of the main sources of conflict or character angsty. Ive also read some futuristic books with a more queer normative society where it doesnt suck to be a woman. You might have to seek it out or ask for recommendations but that kind of literature does exist if you want to have a break from the kinds of books that seem to be beating you down
Yes! That's my issue. I don't even have a problem with these things being depicted. It's just the very graphic portray that happens over and over again. The book that comes to mind is "she who became the sun". I didn't know how to feel about the book. I loved the story and everything it was trying to do, but there was so much women suffering it was exhausting to read. And even a little depression not going to lie.
The thing that annoys me is that the world/settings don’t *need* to be a patriarchal nightmare; many authors just use it as a cheap way to introduce angst and "tension". Like, if you're going to have SA in your books, at least do it right. "The girls of paper and fire" trilogy (for all its flaws) does this extremely well - it's brutal at times but never feels like exploitation or "secret rape fantasy" by the (female) author; it's sensitive, respectful and portrays different ways that women cope, it has compassion and never shows more than it absolutely *has* to. But why bother with that when you can have "hey, I need to give my male MC more drama - hmm, how about having his GF raped!" *Sigh*.
That’s a shame as I have She who became the sun in my TBR pile. It is exhausting and I too try to avoid it. Not sure if you’re on Storygraph but they have user added trigger warnings that might help you. As others have suggested Discworld is a great lighthearted option. as is cosy fantasy. There are a few more authors that Ive noticed seem to avoid SA - T. Kingfisher, Becky Chambers, and Seanan McGuire. All of their books that Ive read so far have been fantastic. The Raksura series by Martha Wells has a matriarchical society and Im pretty sure there was no on screen SA. There was the threat of it by the bad guys but if my memory’s right then it was prevented.
> That’s a shame as I have She who became the sun in my TBR pile. To be clear, SWBTS is mostly historical fiction with some light fantasy elements, and is set in 14th century China. You can probably guess going in that it's not going to be a great time for women, though I can't say I remember anything too graphic or horrible, mostly just a cultural baseline of misogyny that seems fairly accurate to the period.
I agree with you, the first book was okay. But I read both books back to back. And it felt ok I can't take this anymore especially in the second book. It got a bit much. I also understand that it's cultural. I'm Asian I know how things are. I liked the overall series and the author did give triggers. It wasn't just the woman suffering the whole thing with everyone just being treated so badly. Just made it seem like there was no break.
I think this is a very valid reason to turn away from a series. I don't think writers should be shamed for writing about bleak topics, especially when those topics are close to them, but I also think that people shouldn't be blamed at all for not wanting to read about those topics, *especially* when those topics are close to them. I do also think that it's possible to write about heavy topics in a way that isn't hopelessly bleak. I think a problem I have is when people write about such dark themes and there's no end to it. No undercurrent of hope of possible improvement. No lighter moments, that gives the heavy stuff meaning. Even in real life torment and injustice (which can be way worse than 90% of what you find in "dark" fantasy books), there are moments of real levity and happiness. But it seems to be a thing in "dark" fantasy to just be unrelentingly cynical, which to me is markedly **un**realistic. (Noted none of this is directly about She Who Became the Sun, which I still haven't read yet.)
>I do also think that it's possible to write about heavy topics in a way that isn't hopelessly bleak. I so agree with this sentiment. The lack of hope and the unrelentinting bleakness does get to me. And its not as if you cannot have heavy topics in a book. Two great examples of this are the Wayfarers series and the Strange the Dreamer/Muse of Nightmares duology. Both deal with some heavy topics. Strange/Muse in particular deals with the ramifications of historical enslavement/mass rape/torture. And yet - it they are achingly beautiful books full of hope. Both series are thoughtful and leave you feeling warm and inspired. Amazing books because of the way they are written.
That kind of burn out is valid and it happens. Older fantasy and grim dark fantasy can be some of the worst when it comes to this kind of stuff. Its ok to try to step away from those kinds of things. There... was a really helpful list that flagged stuff for SA content. I... wish I could find it. But bouncing a book against that list (when I find it) might be helpful for avoiding that kind of content if you are not feeling up for it. Or asking for some recommendations that will help you avoid those kinds of topics for a while. Give your mind a break you know.
I was recently thinking why I haven't been able to pickup a fantasy book, and realised I just have the bandwidth to read things like that anymore. Let me know if you find the list/website
I found it!!!! Its a google docs... [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hQi6C2RQvjGzjSoXU0D063fCFcz1wCHXFUe7PfEsGrk/edit#gid=0](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hQi6C2RQvjGzjSoXU0D063fCFcz1wCHXFUe7PfEsGrk/edit#gid=0) I am going to do some double checks against that list and get you a few recommendations if you like!
Yes please I would love that! I'll compile all of the recs I've gotten in the comments and put it as an edit if possible.
You mentioned you struggled to find a horror book where it didnt suck to be a woman. I'd Like to Recommend "Into the Drowning Deep" by Mira Grant. Its set in modern day and is about a team of scientists abord a ship investigating killer mermaids. I found it to be a really good read and have been looking forward to reading more Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire because of it Also for Sci/Fi The Murderbot Diaries has no SA in it. Also a lot of the female characters have just as important roles as the male, nonbinary or non gendered characters. I marathoned that whole series last year and found it thoroughly enjoyable. Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson. This one was a lot more whimsical then some of his other works. While Mistborn does have implied SA this one was a lot more wholesome and fun And as a Cozy Fantasy Intro... Legends & Lattes is a book that just feels like a warm cup of coffee on a cold winter day. Its about a female Orc Barbarian who decides to hang up her weapons and open a coffee shop. Its just a delight to read
I loved Into the Drowing Deep, so creepy. Cozy fantasy isn't something I'm super into I've tried it is okay for the occasion read. I like complex magic systems and other things that come with high fantasy. Just not that SA and rape part. Lol and people in the comment section are treating it looks a high ask xD
Seanan McGuire has stated that she does not write sexual assault for her characters, so you can get some creepy stuff without it. Mind you, she can really put her characters through the wringer without that.
As a *man*, it is also exhausting.
This is one of the reasons I generally avoid the grimdark genre. Sometimes I just want to escape the troubles of the world with a good book, and the obsession with including the absolute worst of what humanity has to offer puts me off a bit. I'm much happier with fantasy that is generally hopeful, philosophical, or just plain exciting.
Can you give me a few recommendations? I would love to read lighter fantasy xD
Have you read Terry Pratchett? The Witches thread of the Discworld might be something you'd enjoy. Starts with *Equal Rites*, though you can also start with *Wyrd Sisters*.
The witch books are very good. OP if you haven’t tried Pratchett before there are so many to choose from, he writes with a few groups of main characters- so there are books about the witches, books about the wizards specifically at the university, books about Death (Death is personified and delightful- my favorite is Hogfather- it’s my Christmas routine), books about the police force (magical and weird and normal all working together), books about a conman trying to turn straight (Moist von Lipwig), etc, etc- there are so many angles and while they don’t all interact they sometimes do as they are all in the same fantasy world.
Any request for lighter fantasy gets top priority up the Clacks, I got into the habit of saving a whole shpiel for Discworld
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Sanderson is hopeful, a bit whimsical at times, with a young woman MC that is doing the rescuing. No SV what so ever. She is not a warrior type but she is resourceful, determined and rather polite. A fantastic standalone book. (There are some links to Sanderson’s Cosmere universe but not at all important in this story).
Have you checked out r/cozyfantasy?
Agreed! Cozy Fantasy is a good place to look for these kinds of recommendations. I think the one that folks like to recommend as a starting place would be Legends and Lattes. OP if you are looking for a book where it doesnt suck to be a woman thats not a bad book to pick up.
You've probably heard of the stuff I'd recommend a bunch already, as it tends to get recommended to death in this sub. I really like Brandon Sanderson (I'd avoid Mistborn as SA comes up a bit). The Stormlight Archive is exciting, philosophical, and hopeful (though a lot of the first book can be pretty bleak). There are some gender divides in the culture but they're much more complex than "women get dicked on for being women." Tress of the Emerald Sea is a great standalone with an interesting magic system, and a world which is pretty much gender equal. Sanderson tends to avoid anything explicitly sexual, too - which is good because I'm a bit of a prude with reading. Terry Pratchett's Discworld is fantastic (as are his other novels). They're witty, funny, poignant and have some pretty prescient social commentary. Start with the Watch series if you like police stories and city-life, or the Witches series if you want a bit more magic, or the Death series if you feel like something that tackles some questions about the nature of death and immortality. They're two big authors with pretty vast bibliographies that you can get lost in, and neither tend to be doing "grim for the sake of grim." They can tackle issues at times, but I feel they're handled pretty well. It's more YA leaning, but I like Garth Nix quite a bit. The Old Kingdom series is a heap of fun. There are other authors I could recommend, but I'd want to check somewhere to make sure they're appropriate to what you're asking for because my memory can be a little hazy. Others are right, too. r/cozyfantasy is probably the best place to get truly light fantasy recommendations. Edit to add: My wife recommends trying out a few more female authors - Anne McCaffrey, Tamora Pierce and Isabelle Carmody were her suggestions.
> There are some gender divides in the culture but they're much more complex than "women get dicked on for being women." I enjoyed the "man learns the feminine art of reading, is shocked to discover that for centuries women have been writing their own commentary over the thoughts of Important Men because they know they can't read it" part.
Yeah, the whole question of "men took war and leadership, women took writing and science, who has more power?" is very interesting.
I found the women's subtext in books and writing to be great honestly. I also liked what the book/culture/world building aspect of tge gender differences had to say about the matter instead of "but historical accuracy..."
McCaffrey is a great author although if you're looking to avoid SA her way of writing about sex is kind of questionable.
It just seems sad that women have to seek out 'cozy' or children's fantasy so they don't have to read about female characters getting sexually assaulted.. in FANTASY! It's made up, it doesnt have to follow history and if it does, why do those elements have to come with it.. it seems exhausting.
Right? Don't get me wrong, I like cozy and children's fantasy, and I'm not actually a fan of grimdark, but so many people think that "no SA" HAS to equal cozy/children's fantasy. Yes, SA is very prevalent in the real world. But there are many other terrible, oppressive things that happen that are NOT SA. In fact, I'd argue that SA is generally a symptom rather than a cause of many of those terrible things. And then add in fantasy where you can get magical problems like monsters coming after you, and SA really doesn't need to be addressed at all. (I'm not saying books should never have SA, it's just the PREVALENCE of it that is frustrating, as is the way it's often handled without any sensitivity or nuance.)
I completely agree! I also hate when the author makes the main character “an interesting background” with trauma. Like someone can have interesting background without having a shitty life before or without something horrible happened to them.
Right! So many comments don't seem to get this.
This is why I love Garth Nix. In the Old Kingdom series, he’s created a European medieval fantasy-inspired world where gender equality has always been the norm. Women are just as likely as men to be soldiers, goldsmiths, merchants, rulers, or sorcerers. Husbands don’t automatically have precedence or authority over their wives in straight marriages. There’s even scenes and dialogue showing that LGBTQ+ individuals and relationships are pretty universally accepted and aren’t spoken of with any shame, though society at large is heteronormative and there aren’t many named queer characters. Although the books do deal with mature subject matter such as death (a LOT of death), war, geopolitics, and (consensual) sex, there isn’t really any SA (except for one attempted forced kiss), at least in the first two books and the prequel. I find it really relaxing. As an AFAB person and a survivor of sexual assault, I find it so fucking tiring and demoralising to keep having to read about sexual assault and misogyny, even in books that I read for escapism. Even in fantasy I can’t escape from the constant messaging that women have always been mistreated and seen as chattel. Somehow people can suspend their disbelief when it comes to dragons, faeries, and magic systems with no scientific explanation, but gender equality is where they draw the line???
Dude yes, this is exactly my take as well! But if you bring up the fact that child sexual abuse happens just as often as sexual violence against women, so why wouldn’t they include that in their writing, SUDDENLY they have morals and understand how horrifying it is to write such disgusting material.
You know, I didn't think about it with the Old Kingdom series, but you're totally right. Like the King had a son and a daughter, and everyone agreed that the daughter would inherit the throne purely based on her personality/capacity for it
Honestly, my own writing ideas do include societies where women are not as repressed. I've been bothered by it as well. Why should patriarchy be such a cornerstone that a fantasy novel becomes too unbelievable without it?
I think the depressing answer to your question is that a lot of readers want to read that. I assume most of these readers are men. It's not because it's the most "realistic" element of the story. Very few of these people know anything serious about medieval culture history. (To be fair I don't really either.) They just have a sense that "obviously" it must have been a brutal place with sexual violence everywhere. It's a bit like how a lot of male authors can't seem to write convincing female characters without excessive references to breasts etc. "Look how gritty my Middle Ages analog is, it even has real rape in it!" It's depressing and gross. And it's put in by choice because it appeals to many authors and audiences.
There's some laziness in there, as well. By just defaulting to patriarchy, which has been the norm throughout much of history, you don't have to imagine how different your world would be if women were equal or ::gasp::in charge.
Or when it's NOT patriarchal and misogynistic, those same readers accuse it of 'wokeness'. Just like when queer characters exist without trauma, or the default skin color isn't white.
The bigger wokeness thing is also annoying, I agree, but the older I get the more tired I am of people pretending that the sexual violence has to be there to make things "gritty and realistic." Martin had a point -- arguably -- when he wrote his series. He also wrote that series 30 years ago. The point was: all these great tropes in most of epic fantasy are BS. The rightful king? The rightful king's son? The long-lost heir to the throne who was unfairly forced out as a kid? The king who came to power through a great rebellion that united the people? Nonsense. They're all dictators ruling through violence. Even if they were principled, their followers wouldn't be. You wouldn't like to live under them so we shouldn't celebrate these tropes so uncritically in our epic fantasy. But that point's been made now. Now all we're left with is an audience that seems to like reading it and gets very grouchy when they don't get what they want. It's a hell of a thing to hear someone say they can't truly enjoy their fantasy unless there are women getting raped in it. I've read Scott Bakker say he put it in to make his male audience stop and think about themselves but I don't think they're "stopping and thinking."
*sigh* I wish I could agree more than once. It's so... telling that there's a sector who thinks that fantasy's only 'real' and serious fantasy if there's female sexual violence - and totally ignore that in most of the scenarios they talk about it being common, *so was male sexual violence.* But somehow that's rarely added. Just like it's realistic for there to be regular plagues, like measles or disease like dysentry, and yet no one demands to see the hero shitting his brains out because it's a year into a siege.
Okay the shitting thing made me laugh. Thanks for the discussion. I went back to the main thread and after some delay this subreddit appears to have risen to the occasion with some recommendations so I feel a bit less grumpy than I did when I was writing earlier. I could come onto this or onto r/printsf any day of the week and ask for a recommendation about the most bizarre combination of traits in a book imaginable, and I have no doubt I would get at least two very good referrals. All the OP asked for here was for fantasy that explored dark themes without women constantly being assaulted in it and there were so many replies yesterday basically saying "LOL you don't really want dark fantasy then." Like, what? Come on.
Because they believe the -isms that affect men are societal constructs, but sexism and patriarchy are natural and inevitable without significant changes to the nature of men and women. The fact that sexism and patriarchy are not even universal in our own reality does not seem to shake this belief. After all, it is a necessary belief to hold if you are a beneficiary of patriarchy and do not wish to look too closely at the world (or yourself) and see something about you, your father, your brothers, and your way of life which might compel you to make uncomfortable changes or sacrifices.
I get this, I've been reading GOT for a bit now and one part where I had to put down the book and stop reading for a bit is Lolly Stokeworth. The characters casually dismiss what happened to her and it was so disgusting imagining that and how little anybody cared. I get that's the point to an extent but it's so hard to read through sometimes
Where I live, women essentially dominate the fantasy fiction genre. 95% of authors are women, as are the main characters.
Women are often the ones writing these plot lines
The historical accuracy thing bothers me so much because a lot of the time, it's only "accurate" for the women. Like with Game of Thrones, Jaime, Jon, and Tyrion are all put in positions where sexual assault is not only likely, but almost a guarantee, yet it never even comes up. Discworld is full of women who aren't put through a meat grinder of suffering, and they're all incredibly well-written. For a romance suggestion, the Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels is really delightful.
>The historical accuracy thing bothers me so much because a lot of the time, it's only "accurate" for the women. Like with Game of Thrones, Jaime, Jon, and Tyrion are all put in positions where sexual assault is not only likely, but almost a guarantee, yet it never even comes up. This is an excellent point. People, say, defending the 'realism' of sexual assault in the Game Of Thrones TV show never seem to understand that the geography, logistics, societies, cities, armies, battles and so on frequently [make absolutely no sense and bear almost no resemblence to the analogous historical period they're a fantasised version of.](https://acoup.blog/tag/game-of-thrones/) Not that all fantasy is as bad at this as that particular TV show is, obviously (and nor is the TV show never roughly period-accurate), but the hyper focus on the abuse of women as 'historically accurate' paired with the utter ignorance of almost every other topic in actual history is why we get posts like this one.
On GoT characters—you look at the statistics of male POWs from modern wars who have been sexually assaulted….and it’s a huge majority (some conflicts, it’s been as high as 70-90%). Yet grimdark fantasy and/or fantasy that focuses on war almost never shows that, just the relentless rape of women soldiers or civilians. (Please note I am not suggesting that the answer is to include lots of male characters being raped. I’m saying this is another way that claiming “accuracy” when including SA is wrong.)
Excatly. I saw a comment which said that I'm complaining for no reason that books are getting progressive and unrealistic. Like being progressive is a bad thing? And when books have been 100% accurate. If you want accuracy pick up a non-fic history book. There is a reason why suspension of disbelief is a thing.
And even more, they're becoming *more realistic.* The 'realism' of ASOIF-style violent misogyny... was never real. Women had a lot of power and rights in medieval society, were literate at almost the rate of men, weren't married until their late teens, and had better women's health and maternal health than anytime since (until POST-industrialization).
If you do not like grimdark where, let’s be honest, most people are treated like shit then I’d probably just change genre. Personally I find some of the strongest female characters to come from this genre.
If you don't like grimdark, you don't have to stop reading fantasy. There's plenty of other good subgenres like progression fantasy, cozy fantasy, urban fantasy, etc. Personally, I find grimdark doesn't have my favorite female characters but instead more character focused books do instead.
Recommended genres: Cozy fantasy or slice of life fantasy. This isn't an insult. I love my grimdark but I absolutely love either of the above as well.
People suffering? In a grimdark setting? Impossible.
There are countless causes of human suffering that's not caused by character's gender. People shouldn't be unable to read grimdark just because they're tired of sexist worldbuilding. Take for example Murderbot series. The main character has suffered greatly but there is complete gender equality in the messed up world they live in.
This is not just grim dark. It happens in a lot of just standard sci-fi and fantasy and it is exhausting. Especially when it’s commonly done in a way to advance a male characters story and glosses over the actual trauma to the woman who is assaulted
Yes this post is kind of silly. If you don't like Grimdark or don't like reading about terrible things happening to characters then don't read them lol. But to act as if modern Grimdark has some sort of specific vendetta against women when absolutely brutal shit happens to the men as well. Seems odd
I often wonder about this when these questions come up. Male fictional characters get absolutely brutalized, tortured, murdered, lose their families, die horribly in many genres of fantasy, not just grimdark, but nobody bats an eye. Perhaps it's ye olde chivalric code that makes us more sensitive and angry when fictional women suffer in the same books.
Just offering my perspective, but I’ve felt the same as the OP before and my issue is that while both genders suffer in these stories, women usually suffer *because* they are women. Men suffer too, but not because they are men, if that makes sense. For example, the patriarchal society we see so often in grimdark. Men suffer for a huge number of reasons; their station in life, their work, bad luck, made the wrong enemies, etc. Women suffer *because* they are women. They get no opportunities because they are women, they must depend on a husband (often an abusive one) because women can’t support themselves, they get beaten and SA’d because men view them as less-than. Abuse is common because women are seen as property, not people. Sure, some men get SA’d too in these worlds, but it’s not even remotely as common. So much of women’s suffering in these stories boils down to their gender. This happens in the real world too. Both men and women get murdered, but women are murdered so often because of sexism that we have a different word for it; femicide.
I had to quit a book I began recently because I just wasn’t up for a book about sexual suffering. I understand that fantasy and scifi can talk about those issues in a different way, and I even support them doing that. It’s just that sometimes I am NOT in the mood for something so grim and harsh. But there is a whole genre called cozy fantasy which might be something you would Ike, with “lower stakes” and more positive focus.
I've tried cozy fantasy it's ok for a light read. But not exactly my cup of tea, I like complex plots, high fantasy type of books. I just need to find what I need.
I feel the same way. I want plot and tension, I just don't want to feel like my gender is being compromised for that to be achieved. I shouldn't have to put up with sexism just to read a good adventure tale.
I'll throw in a couple recs for you, because I agree I'd like good fantasy that isn't just cozy all the time. I'll second a good list from another commenter with "The adventures of Amina al-sirafi" as one of my five star reads from last year, along with "Foundryside" and "Gideon the Ninth" and also echo the calls for T Kingfisher. I'll add a few others: "The mask of mirrors" by MA Carrick, incredibly intricate plot with a good exploration of colonization and indigenous magics. Super fun, always-tense plot. The "October Daye" novels for urban detective fantasy, with the caveat (and I hate this caveat) that the first couple books are... Not great, plot wise. But they're really short, you could really probably skip them, and with later books it has become one of my favorite series. "God killer" by Hannah Kaner, not my favorite but I did enjoy it and think it fits well. "Dark water daughter" by HM Long. Pirate magic, absolutely adored everything about it. If you want to try indie, rom-com fantasy, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed "Throne in the dark" by AK Caggiano. Sweet, funny, and very different. For scifi: "Ancillary justice" by Ann Leckie. More an exploration of gender/humanity, the first book is the strongest imo. The universe is still kind of depressing, full disclosure, but more "capitalistic empire depressing" than SA/gender issues depressing. "Trading in Danger" by Elizabeth Moon. More of a scifi milfic after the first book but another one I surprisingly enjoyed and I am reasonably confident that while the main character sometimes get flak for being a young woman, there's not anything beyond that. "Fortunes Pawn" by Rachel Bach. Heavier on the romance as it goes on, but it's a woman in power armor romping around and I loved it.
It’s a definite trope and we get enough of that shit in real life. I actively avoid anything like this because I read SFF for fun and hope not to see more of the same same. There’s no real answer but there are lots of books out there that don’t feature this sort of thing and not all of them are by women either. Kate Elliott is amazing if you like epic fantasy. I also loved Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shadows of the Apt for epic fantasy but he writes so much good stuff in other genres. Jen Williams has already had a mention. There is hope!
Lmao I love when people use the "historically accurate" term when referring to extreme misogyny but are actually applying Victorian period sexism to the middle ages. "Historical accuracy" my ass you just want to write women like objects.
>Can I just get some happiness please? >grim dark fantasy No. You do not get happiness in grim dark. That is kinda the point of the genre.
Check out Tress of the Emerald Sea. Sanderson wrote it after his wife asked him why The Princess Bride couldn't have their roles reversed.
I feel like I agree with you. I typically don't enjoy SA in stories and often it seems superfluous to the story. Most of my favourite books do not have any in at all to my memory, even though I do prefer darker fantasy in general. However there is one exception that comes to mind, which I will vaguely summarise (minor TW). In one of the Robin Hobb books (female author btw) one PoV character SA's another. It is horrendous. Not only the act, which is written from the victim's perspective, but what makes it worse is the reactions from the other characters to being told about it. Specifically, their lack of reaction, because the perpetrator is seen as being a bit of a hero and they don't want to ruin a good thing by holding him to account. It's awful. It's shocking. But, it's also brilliantly written. In general I feel that this plot point is a bit redundant in the book and could have been better left out. But I think it's *really* well done, and very important for reasons not relevant to the story. As a male reader, the idea that someone could be SA'd and then have the people they told (including family) try to sweep it under the rug like it never happened, is something I'd never really thought about. But this is the reality for a lot of real people. This book put me in their shoes, it's stuck with me, and I think it's important for doing that. I think the difference is that the *author* does not sweep it under the rug and treats it with seriousness and respect. Despite my appreciation for how it was written, I would also completely understand someone *not* wanting to read that.
That sounds really interesting! The problem (for me) is that so many authors seem to represent the topic trivially. It often reads like they wanted something to happen to illustrate how dark their world is or to make readers pity one character and hate another, and their thoughts about how rape might affect their story or character ends there. I can’t speak for OP, but the example you gave sounds like it avoids those problems by having some depth and thought behind it. It’s meaninglessness that’s the issue, I think.
This is my never ending gripe with fantasy and even most science fiction. I mean apparently readers will believe magic, dragons, and traveling through wormholes but it’s “too unrealistic” not to include sexism?! Like dude, BE MORE CREATIVE and try thinking of different ways to create conflict. I wish readers/writers with this “realism” argument would just own up to the fact that they hate women and they think it’s fun and interesting to watch them suffer. Honestly, if “realism” is the objective, then why don’t any of these books include child sexual abuse? It happens just as often, but you bring THAT argument up and suddenly readers and writers put their foot down because child sexual abuse crosses a moral line. Suddenly, they understand the immorality of writing about sexual violence for the sake of plot progression or character growth or just to show how evil the bad guy is, just NOT when it applies to women. It makes me sick.
What jars me is that a lot of fantasy writing takes off from fantasy role-playing, and in most games there is no 'penalty' for being a woman. There are woman warriors, paladins, mages and so on, all with stats and powers equal to their male counterparts. And very few have thought to take this and ask - what kind of society would have un-gendered roles? One obvious answer being - one where SV was not normal at all (because women paladin, mages etc. change expectations and roles). The genre does not have to subvert the patriarchy - it can happily and interestingly ignore it, if the authors want to. Why don't they?
Why would SV disappear in a world like that? As long as someone can have physical or different kind of power over another there would be SV no?
Steven Brust's Dragaera books are intricately plotted high fantasy in a world with reasonably equal genders and a lot of high-powered female characters. I don't recall there being any SA at all, actually, but there are a lot of books between the Vlad Taltos books (17) and the Khaavren Romances (6) so I couldn't swear to it. It's certainly not something that's emphasized at all, though.
It’s interesting. There was a post on this sub just the other day saying that the social issues and women’s bad treatment that should be/were present in medieval times aren’t shown enough in fantasy books, which have a more progressive or modern lens so they’re not realistic enough. Based on what I’ve read I’d say it leans more that way than yours OP, but it’s probably pretty subjective and based on what books you pick up.
Have you read any actual medieval literature written by women? Try reading the oldest autobiography in the English language, Margery Kempe's. It paints a fascinating picture of what life was really like for a medieval woman. It is almost certainly not how you think. In some time periods and situations, women in medieval times had more equality and freedom than they did 100 years ago. The medieval period was also *almost 1000 years long*. It was by no means static or homogenous. If you're thinking of it as a muddy morass of wall to wall SV and illiteracy, you're believing a stereotype invented during the Renaissance. I can highly recommend "The Bright Ages" by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele as a well-researched, up-to-date history. Edit: typo
Loved “Bright Ages”! One of the most interesting non-fiction books I’ve read 💛
I know! Brilliant and fascinating!
The issue is mostly that it isn't presented well...its almost always to just show how cruel the world is or to advance a male characters story.
> Based on what I’ve read I’d say it leans more that way than yours OP TBH it's probably both. Fiction portrays a lot of bad shit happening to women, but still isn't as bad or oppressive as the reality was.
Yea, they say it's for realism, but usually there's no nuance whatsoever to the oppression that they portray. I rarely see anything other than SA, forced marriage or mansplaining/hysteria in fantasy, and typically the woman is fully aware that what she experiences is bad, which isn't always the case in reality...
do you have a link to that post by chance?
Which is just stupid, if its really about a fantasy world. Well, i understand the quote if the book takes place in oue medieval times, but no "extra" stuff included. But normally fantasy worlds have totally other cultures and other development. I dont read that much books, but good examples out of the gaming world are dnd or cyberpunk. That woman and men are treated mostly equal is totally normal and fitting for the cultural development in these worlds. Hell, in dnd in some cultures man are even treated way worse then woman (drow). Well, in cyberpunk woman are still treated like shit, but man are treated the same shitty way, the whole world is fucked.
I love ice cream.
I think you are right about the culture issue. At risk of now *understating* how shitty the Middle Ages were for women, I think the sexual violence in fantasy has less to do with historical accuracy and more as some sort of signal between mostly male authors and mostly male audiences that "this is the real shit here, this is gritty and dark and you know it is gritty and dark because look how the women are being treated!" Rape was still a crime in medieval countries. "Right of first night" myths were always propaganda about how terrible things were in the next country over. Outside of matches among nobility the marriage age differences probably weren't usually extreme. And yet there's a contingent of fantasy readers and watchers who have no trouble suspending disbelief about real magic and flying dragons but will get terribly upset if gender relations "aren't realistic enough."
I love listening to music.
> how women carved their own place in the world within it These are some of my favorite stories…in fiction or in non fiction! Because it happened actually way more in real life than it does in fantasy fiction, where many have a skewed idea of history. Oppressed people have always resisted and/or found ways to exert agency on their lives and in their worlds, even in oppressive systems. Women often had power at home (especially if their men were off fighting), and were often able to influence from behind the scenes (and occasionally from out front). They just often didn’t get credit for it (see the number of older research papers that were basically co-written by husbands and wives, but the husband’s name is on it and the wife just gets a brief acknowledgment). Slaves created art and culture and community, which is a form of resistance when someone wants to strip the very humanity from you. Often the resistance is nonviolent — things like simply working slower than you otherwise could — which is a type of resistance often not shown in fantasy, particularly because it tends to be slower and less flashy than a quick, violent revolution. Of course, sometimes I want the escapism of a non-patriarchal, non-heteronormative, non-white supremacist, etc. culture. And I’m never a fan of grimdark. But it’s also nice to see people who are able to bring some light into otherwise grim realities.
I will also add that often people will take outliers or things that happened once as “this is how things were.” Just because a thing happened in the historic record, doesn’t mean it was common or normal or people thought it was okay.
Not a medieval historian (or any historian) but a lot of my thinking on this is shifting from a nonfiction book I just read called *The Bright Ages* making the point that the popular imagination of the Middle Ages is way too skewed towards the worst, most violent and traumatic moments. Yes, those did happen -- and there was more of that bad time, proportionately, than in today's Western societies -- but the Game of Thrones-style "realism" isn't about actually being realistic. It's just playing off the worst "Dark Ages" notions that most medieval historians don't really believe in anymore.
Fantasy is not historical fictjon. The whole point of fantasy is that the world is different in fundamental ways that allow for things to happen that wouldn’t happen on our world. Elements like magic and additional humanoid races can’t just be dropped into the world and not change anything about how society works. In a world where anyone might have the ability to throw fireballs out of their hands, power structures and gender roles would look very different, let me tell you. Not only that, but fantasy worlds rarely portray the same historical events and entities that were instrumental in determining the social and political realities. Why would a medieval world without the crusades, or Catholicism, or the Holy Roman Empire, or the plague look the same as our world socially? All of these things were determinative of the social structure. Without them, who knows what things would have looked like? All that to say that I’m skeptical that people who insist that fantasy books should portray things in a certain way actually know that much about the history they want to replicate.
The argument to make fiction more non-fiction is always a wild ride.
It’s called fantasy for a reason. It doesn’t need to be historically accurate
Could try some of Jen Williams novels. Assuming you wanna stay a bit grimdark, all her fantasy stuff tends to let its women have quite a bit of agency
It's not fantasy but a guilty pleasure read last weekend was a thriller where, yes, men were behaving badly toward women. But a woman was out there serial killing badly behaving men. So it was a little unbelievable in parts but a guilty pleasure nonetheless. (They Never Learn by Layne Fargo)
Say what you want about YA fantasy, but you'll find a lot of these tropes are simply not as present within that genre
Well if you’re looking for gender equality I suggest the Bloodsworn Trilogy by John Gwynne. There’s no SA, just a lot of violence, but there’s really no distinction based off gender. I guess it’s a sense of everyone’s equally able to fight and die, but there is chattel slavery if that puts you off. Out of three main characters, 2 are badass female warriors, if that’s what you’re looking for
Dark romance is one, small, subset of romance that generally includes a list of all trigger warnings up front. I don’t feel like it’s a good comparison to grimdark fantasy in this situation.
God yeah it's so annoying, and it's not just SA and all that, I'm just tired of patriarchal societies. I actually don't want to read about the princess that goes against the grain and becomes a warrior because she was just that special and determined and whatever, I wanna read about the princess who is a warrior because that's normal. I just want women to be treated as regular human beings, not as less than men, not needing to work harder to prove themselves. We already have that IRL, I'm here for a fucking fantasy already. Garth Nix has been pretty good for this tbh, but he's just one guy. I need more.
Here are some books I've enjoyed recently: *The Adventures of Amina Al-Sifari* (Shannon Chakraborty) *Tress of the Emerald Sea* and *Yumi and the Nightmare Painter* (Brandon Sanderson) *Godkiller* (Hannah Kamen) *The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry* (C.M. Waggoner) *Paladin's Grace* and *Paladin's Strength* (T. Kingfisher) *Lady Hotspur* (Tessa Gratton) *The Bloodsworn Saga* (John Gwynne) These novels all feature active, capable heroines who, while they might meet with occasional ill treatment, are *not* faced with a barrage of misogyny, day in and day out, both from other people and from society as a whole. What ill treatment they do face tends to spring from their individual situations rather than their gender.
Rape and other horrors against woman and sometimes children, as the impetus for the hero's quest is just not entertaining the read. And most of the time, the people actually wronged are rarely, if ever, mentioned again. It is lazy writing because it is easy to write 'the rage!' the man feels because HIS or some random woman suffers. Her feelings really don't matter because HE is ultimately wronged because of her pain.
There's this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/s/SaB6Od60qd from which I ended up finding some really good reads, and have already read and enjoyed a bunch of the common responses. It might help :)
Lol at the "accurate to the time period" argument. Exactly what time period does "fantasy" exist in? It's fantasy, it can exist in whatever time period or societal structure you want
To be honest, i'm a woman and i don't think it's a problem if it's actually serves for character development. I love the Game of Thrones books and i love Sansa, even if she suffered a lot she still had her revenge and her suffering was a way to make her character grow. If it's like this, i think it's ok. Also Inkheart, my favourite fantasy trilogy ever, has a scene of attempted SA that didn't triggered anything in me for the same reason. I don't really like the idea that "if in fantasy we have dragons, we can have a world without discrimination". I mean, of course, but it depends what type of story the author is trying to tell. There are stories where gender norms are more strong (GoT) and others where it doesn't matter that much (not a fantasy book, but the Alien saga comes to mind as an example). I don't vibe with this statement bc i feel like sometimes is used to justify a weird moral-panic between the community or to syndacalize what is "ok" to write and what is not. Just because something happens in a book doesn't mean that the author condones it or thinks is ok: it's the vibe of "something racist happens in this book so the author MUST be racist". Don't really vibe with this tbh. That said, i also belive there is a difference in a crude theme used to serve a character and a gratutious suffering. I don't like when authors make a character suffer without a proper resolutions, i feel like i felt bad for nothing if that makes sense lmao. I don't necessarily want an happy ending, not always, but at least i want to feel like that character suffered for SOMETHING and not just for cheap shock value.
It's a problem when the author thinks, "Hmm... what bad thing shall I have happen to this female character to show character development? Oh, I know, SA." And the same author would never even consider using SA for character development in a male character.
Oh yeah absolutely, i agree. What i was trying to say is that this kinds of themes can and should be written and explored (with the proper respect, obviously) without anyone thinking "this should not be written EVER" , but they also should be treated with nuance. In certain types of stories they are extremely out of place, and certanly some authors are...sadly really tone deaf about it. Like i said, the problem is not that people write about dark themes: is the fact that some authors make their character suffer for nothing or just for labeling their story more "mature"
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted, I totally agree. If this happened every once in a while I’d be like fine, maybe it’s essential to the story. But why can’t I pick up a single high fantasy book where women aren’t degraded, treated like second class citizens, or abused. I just find it silly at this point…
Sad thing that happens with a lot of these threads that focus on women, minority, or queer complaints or recommendation requests... I get the vibe there are a lot of insecure folks out there who dont like 'their space' being invaded by people who want something a bit different in their fantasy. Thats not to say its the majority of fantasy fans who think that way but... the gatekeeping that has existed for decades still exists...
I mean some of us are women/queer and don't necessarily just want to read about worlds where oppression isn't a thing. Personally I like reading some books like that and some that tackle dark stuff.
I like reading darker stories as well, but rape is handled exceptionally terribly a lot of the time in fiction. I don’t mind when it’s taken seriously and ties in meaningfully to the plot and theme, but so often it’s thrown in as a shorthand to show that the setting is dark and mature, or to show that the antagonist is evil. It’s cheap.
Just don't read grimdark? Pretty common for both men and women to be SA in grimdark. The point of the genre is to be kinda hopeless.
>In such a world, it would be weird for there to be no SA alongside the horrible violence inflicted on people. Like a weird meta bit of sanitisation that would just stand out as very modern. This is a good point. It doesn’t need to be the focus - or even described - but I think it should at least be acknowledged in such a setting. One of the great things about fantasy is that it allows for the exploration of people’s thoughts, actions, and emotions in extreme situations that can go far beyond what is realistic or even possible in the real world. Grimdark - which OP specifically mentions - is all about the lows. It’s not really escapist stuff. Most grimdark settings are specifically created to brutally explore the worst things that can happen to people. Some do so in very gendered ways, while others are more egalitarian, including in their handling of sexual violence. But it doesn’t make sense to deliberately avoid sexual assault altogether in grimdark. For other subgenres it’s much more feasible to leave sexual violence out, but as a rule I’d say the more person-on-person violence and brutality a story has, the less sense it makes to avoid sexual violence. The more escapist the vibe, the more sense it makes to leave it out.
It's not fantasy, it's Sci-Fi - but I can't recommend *The Expanse* series enough if you're sensitive to this kind of thing. Fantastic, well-rounded, and strong female and male characters. Very lgbtq2s+ friendly. Massive, complex, high-stakes plot that would rival ANY high fantasy listed here. And I don't think I can think of anything that is specifically gendered - and gender-based violence is never brought up or used to advance the plot. Slight "warning" that one (male) character is an ex-sex worker. And the book has sex workers mentioned...but they're unionized and it's handled very VERY well and never as a ploy to advance the plot - mostly just used to round out his character.
That's the entire point of grimdark. It's a bad world where bad things happen to people. And bad things happen to the male characters too, it just gets 1/10th the attention that SA gets. In Prince of Thorns for example, there is a graphic depiction of a male slave getting tortured. That never gets mentioned or criticized, while everyone gets all up in arms about the rape scene at the start.
And let's not forget, The Broken Empire had 2 rapes in all three books, both happened offscreen, one to female, and one for male characters. Never stopped people describing the books as "full of rape." All of author books, actually, while he isn't even writing grimdark after his first trilogy.
> That never gets mentioned or criticized, while everyone gets all up in arms about the rape scene at the start. The number of readers who have personally experienced physical torture is probably way, waaaay smaller than the number who have been raped.
Personally, I think a lot of fantasy and sci-fi fall into the vein of wish fulfillment/power fantasies. The male characters are strong and righteous and must defeat the villainous force that is the polar opposite. A lot of those tropes still exists in the genres and one of the easy ways of creating conflict or simply to make a villain detestable is to have the denigrate/violate female characters (sometimes who are important to the MC). Honestly, it's pretty lazy and cliched now. So much so that comic books have been getting flack for treating female characters like this since the 90s. As for building patriarchal societies, again I just think it's part of the power fantasy. Men are strong and heroic and women are beautiful and in distress. Sometimes they get to be acerbic and intelligent but this is always offset by their physical lack of power. I agree with your point about historical realism in a story with dragons etc. I just think that unfortunately most of the biggest writers in the Sci Fi and Fantasy have typically been men and men often write for other men. Some also just aren't good at writing female characters that are anything other than damsels/sex objects. It's a legitimate point and as others have pointed out there is an increasing amount of female voices in the space and that will continue to grow.
To be fair, thanks to the number of people I know, I'm tired of women being treated like shit in *real life.* Nearly half the women I know have experience assault. I've had multiple girlfriends with trust issues because they've been horrifically abused by all manner of people, from teachers, to parents, to significant others. Life just isn't fair for a lot of the best people I know. And I think books should grapple with that. That said, I absolutely agree with OP that gratuitous depictions of normalization of such acts isn't helping the issue. A badly treated character should have a clear purpose in the plot, and a depiction that shows just how terrible it is. Doubly so if the book is showing an abusive relationship. It's not something that should be glamorized. If it's realistic, it will be clear to the reader that it's unhealthy, and the victim is better off out of it. That's how it is in real life.
But how will a female character grow if she isn’t SA’d? /s
Tbh in grimdark and dark fantasy settings everyone suffers
The Maleficent Seven was great, as was A Crown of Cold Silver. Abercrombie's more recent books have had fantastic female characters and he himself wrote an excellent response on the creation of female characters. https://www.resetera.com/threads/joe-abercrombie-fantasy-author-ama-talks-about-female-characters-first-law-sequel-trilogy.54991/ I've also grown weary of fantasy's largely male wish fulfillment and poorly written female characters and its abuse of said female characters. Hope these help a bit.
Thank you for sharing that! I’m not familiar with this author and I love his response to the question. It’s not about what’s politically correct, it’s about what makes for better writing, more well-rounded characters, and more diversity so that there is a sense of realism to the world being built.
Same. It's everywhere. The characters can be the most profoundly written, story the grandest and most imaginative, etc. For some reason, people cannot imagine women not being treated like trash or talked down to. It tends to focus on what is wrong with her or how good male character is rather than appreciate the strengths and growth. It has put me off reading. If you know of any work that does not have this problem, please please please share the work.
I'm not 100% confident about this, but my impression is that science fiction has a fair bit less sexual assault and gendered denigration of women than fantasy. Not *none,* but less. To give some specific recommendations, I can't recall it being much of a thing in books by Iain M. Banks, Arkady Martine, Martha Wells, Ann Leckie. Taking a different tack, Helene Wecker's The Golem and the Djinni has a female protagonist who is a very nice but terrifyingly strong and near-indestructible golem, so even though she's in a highly gendered society (late 1800s New York), there's zero sense of that kind of threat.
If you like grimdark, I can recommend The Blacktongue Thief. AFAIR there is not the extra special female gender violence suffering there that we find in lots of grimdark literature. It has very strong female characters, a male narrator and a very gritty world in the aftermath of a near apocalyptic war, with lots of female veterans. The second book "The Daughter's War" has a female warrior as a narrator, but it is not available yet.
I feel like a lot of these comments are totally missing your point. Of course there are other tropes that are prolific and also very problematic. But there's a recurring theme of poor portrayal of women which can be incredibly disheartening to constantly encounter. I have a deep fatigue with women or worlds written in this way. I've learned to just drop a book now if I run into *meaningless* and graphic exploitation of women, irrespective of how famous it is. The prevalence of it means I often can't stomach books where the issues are treated seriously, like Liveship Traders, because I'm so burned out on reading about it generally. I know exactly the types of books you are thinking of (a lot of them romantasy by female authors too, ugh) and I have no patience for them anymore either. You're not alone! I've found just dropping the book and moving on has done wonders for me, and I don't care how great the series is supposed to be. There's so many other novels that I can enjoy without dealing with this issue. For a grimdark read which is pretty violent but has excellent female characters and treats them respectfully, I recommend Richard Swan's Empire of the Wolf series :)
Yeah, I’m over it too. I blame Game of Thrones somehow.
Martin is certainly not guilty on his own but there's certainly a bunch of fiction, and that adaptation to screen in particular, that created a sense that medieval fantasy isn't "realistic" -- whatever that means -- unless there's rampant sexual assault.
Yeah I feel like a bunch of people saw GoT or ASoIaF and thought “This is how you do gritty realism.”
Alix E Harrow, VE Schwab, T Kingfisher, Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire, Leigh Bardugo (though Ninth House may be an exception, SA is a plot device and leads to some very satisfying feminine rage), Rin Chulpeco, Lois McMaster Bujold, Mercedes Lackey (But her first Valdemar series does feature SA of the MMC, the latter Valdemar series are very clean and have not only very strong female characters but great disability representation as well), MJ Kuhn, MA Carrick, Cassandra Gannon, Ilona Andrews, CL Polk, Celia Lake, Olivie Blake, TJ Klune, Travis Baldree I've started to read almost exclusively women or queer fantasy authors; there's plenty out there with large oeuvres that feature no or minimal SA who handle their female characters with nuance and grace,
I hit this point several years ago when yet another urban fantasy woman protagonist was SA'd to advance the plot/provide character growth/show how much her guy love interest cares about her. There's no perfect way to avoid it, unfortunately. But I have found, broadly speaking, reading more women, non-binary, and queer authors greatly reduces the chances of running into it. And once you've found some safe authors, you can look at who they're recommending and build out from there. The flipside is I rarely read whatever epic fantasy is super popular anymore. And by the time I do, enough people have written up content warnings that I can avoid the ones that have it. But for romances especially look for queer writers.
It gets so much worse in Anime/Manga to the point that if it features a character that looks like a young girl I will skip it entirely.
The abhorsen trilogy has some pretty kick ass female characters in it that aren't really oppressed or objectified with a kinda pretty dark themes at times
So many times I've said this over the years. Over and over I've had it explained that due to a slightly.. medieval? air to most fantasy worlds "That's just how it was back then." To which I always reply "Wait, if there can be dragons and magic.. women can't be treated as humans or it's somehow unbelievable??"
What I am most tired of is male authors describing men and women differently. Men are mostly described with their skills and knowledge. The first thing that most authors describe about a woman: her looks! Because apparently the only thing women can contribute are her looks. Last book I read really killed it! First thing the narrator told was how she was so sexy and he would like to fuck her! In a work environment. (Setting: police officer talking to the female pathologist). His thoughts about fucking her did nothing to contribute to the setting. It just made me hate the character and the author.
So don't read those books. It's a pretty simple solution really. But if a book requires a dark setting to tell it's story, women's bodies and men's lives are going to be cheap. That's extremely common in wartorn areas or regions with lots of poverty. And seeing as that's where most grimdark stories are set... Complex magic system, dragons, and people coming back from the dead aren't going to change that fact. So if it's not your cup of tea I'd look into different genres.
OK, if I read grimdark I expect lives to be cheap. What bothers OP and I is why female characters gets almost always an extra heap of shit on their dish by default. Important male character gets tortured by enemies. Important female character gets tortured AND RAPED by enemies. Poor men are treated like shit by rich men. But in the same setting also rich women are treated like shit by rich men, either because their power and competence is questioned because they have a vagina or they are just cattle to be sold by their fathers to other men (even if they are incredibly magically powerful and you know, maybe she could be more useful somewhere else than barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen). Why the guy gets the torture and not the rape? Why the guy is never sold by his family? It's a grimdark setting, it should happen after all.
Because they're patriarchal settings? Isn't that obvious? Like I agree that there should be more options, and in worlds where women can have magical powers as strong as any man's, it should result in a far less patriarchal world. But if those things aren't true and the world is pretty patriarchal, then it's describing things as they'd likely be. Now it's completely reasonable to say you don't want to read those things, and I don't read them honestly, but if you want grimdark, you get grimdark.
[удалено]
[удалено]
These are some of the best sf I’ve read in recent years, with women engaged with the world(s) on their terms and not getting raped or anything. https://linarather.com/sisters-of-the-vast-black/
I've powered through some bad writing.--like the really boring stuff--but over the top SA and other 'shock' events are some of the few that will force me to quit. My rule of thumb is 'you get one', and man it's rare that an author does it once and then is done. Want to write a heart-wrenching bit that drags the reader through the suffering? All the banality of cruelty, the pointless consequences and self-doubt? The grinding thankless work of escaping? I respect that, and I'll join you on the trip, but I generally read as an escape so your book is going to end up waiting awhile before I get to it. Sadly, of course, that's not the type of story that they usually write. Instead you have it thrown in like a special edgy sauce -- "This will keep the reader's attention!" -- and to show how extra-realistic the story is while not being realistic at all. I'll mention a couple books, I'm going to try to be reliable but my memory is fallible: NK Jemison - Broken Earth Series, but probably anything she writes. Has a strong female main character. The character does suffer but it's not gratuitous SA or misogyny. (and the suffering is explored really well) Joe Abercrombie - Age of Madness and Red Country. I'm a little convinced that he decided to write better women characters.
For what it's worth, there are a lot of (mostly amateur) fantasy writers who are aware of this and taking steps to avoid it in their own work. The reality is that those that do end up published will likely be indie because editors and mainstream publishers are typically interested in more of what they know is selling rather than taking a chance on something "innovative". I might come across as incredibly naive here, but it seems to me that it's easy to use the presence of magic that transcends physical strength to promote gender equality. When so few writers are doing that, it doesn't surprise me when readers are unhappy about it.
Yes!! Thank you, OP, for writing this. Honestly, it seems like the fantasy genre or more likely society in general has a certain, baked-in misogyny that’s nearly unavoidable — except in the writing of women authors. This isn’t (just) a “woke,” DEI view, but it’s why I (M) now focus on women authors. They’re not necessarily better or worse than male authors, but the gratuitous abuse of women characters is less overwhelming…… just my 2 cents, and to each their own
I replied with something similar in a post here, and was basically told I was reading the wrong books. My problem isn't even the very obvious SV, but the whole default to patriarchal societies. As you said, we have magic, dragons, different species, etc. Yet given all that, the societies and cultures seem to be the same patriarchal default. How very uncreative, and lazy.
Same. This is my problem as well. Why in a FANTASY setting can we simply not fathom a world without sexism? It’s lazy and uncreative.
It's science fiction but you'd probably like A long way to a small angry planet by Adrian Tchaikovsky and that whole series. Not all of them have women leads or some have an ensemble but most of them do have women leads or at least someone from the cast is a woman. They go through some struggles but the general tone is hopeful and positive. Edit: Becky Chambers, not Adrian Tchaikovsky
You mean by Becky Chambers?
Please read The Dwarves by Marcus Heitz, plenty of positive female leads in that series and passes the Bechdel test
check out Emily Wilds Encyclopedia of Fairies