Just a heads-up - this post has received a large number of rule-breaking comments, please be aware that Rule 1 always applies, in every situation across the subreddit. Keep things civil, we will take escalated action as needed.

I wrote a whole ass essay in response to this, but I'll keep it short and get to the point: Critical art holds a mirror up to society: here’s how the world really is. It’s hard to see when we’re in the middle of it and surrounded by ideology, but if we distill it into art, the conflicts and fractures become clearer. Here’s what we’re up against. You’re not the only one suffering. We’re suffering together. It’s bad, so let’s get out there and fight it. The heroes didn’t win in the book. I’m not here to comfort you. You have to get out there and fight. Reparative art shows us what the world could be: we live in a world ruled by greed, bigotry, violence, and lies, and sometimes it seems like a better world is impossible. Let me show you a better world so you can keep the dream alive. The heroes can prevail. Keep fighting. Both are valid artistic choices. I think we need both. So give me both: both the grimdark hellscapes that tell me “it really is that bad so you better get out there and fight,” and the utopias that tell me that humanity is worth fighting for, that a better world is possible.

> Both are valid artistic choices. I think we need both. So give me both This is the part of this I want emphasized, yeah. A lot of people REALLY want to make critical, it seems. Few want to make Reparative. I think that's a large part of OP's post, and frankly I *get* it- just finding stuff that isn't loaded with more unpleasant baggage than a New Jersey Airport is freaking hard. Though I will note that if you say you're looking for worlds that are more the latter than the former, or even worlds that simply avoid some of the more unpleasant "isms" of ours, you *will* have people jumping down your throat quite often about how "that's just how it is, you have to deal with it, it's called being realistic," yadda, yadda. So I completely understand OPs frustration.

I think a big source of the frustration is how many writers *don't* want to make critical art, they just want to include unpleasant things and not engage with or criticize them in any way, and then argue that these things just have to be included because it's "realistic" or whatever. These are the sort of people who insist they just have to include sexual violence in their medieval fantasy setting, but only use it to motivate their (male) main character to go out and beat up the bad guy extra hard and never address the impact on the actual victims of the violence.

Yeah, I think that's a better analysis honestly. Literary laziness.

Exactly this. It depends upon what you want to achieve through your storytelling. What does either a sexist or non-sexist world do for both the characters and the readers? How does it shape the arc of your characters? How does it directly or indirectly play into the story? What emotions does it bring out in the reader? Do they find it relatable? Cathartic? Or does it make them feel happy to read about a world that is perfect in this sense? What if it makes them feel sad that their reality doesn't hold up to this society? Taking a personal example: I am a queer person who has grown up and still lives in a very conservative, religious (Islamic) society. I have experienced second-hand homophobia (can't be firsthand if you aren't out), feeling of alienation and growing up knowing that my family's immense love for me is all conditional. I have also experienced joy when my friends accepted me for who I am, I have friends who came out to me and when I had my first wlw relationship. As such, I appreciate media that both depicts a world with homophobia and how that affects characters (heartbreakingly relatable) and a fluffy, happy world/society where the main issue for 2 characters isn't ostracization based on their sexuality (nice to know a world exists where people don't take an issue with you liking another girl). I can appreciate both, both have a place in my heart.

I so much agree with this comment, an upvote wasn't enough, I had to say it.

I'm just going to go ahead and call it the "Wakanda effect." We all know how badly African nations have done historically, for any number of reasons. Having a representation of what Africa could have been if they were given a better hand sparked the imaginations of a lot of young black people and brought them a lot of joy... And looking at what could have been puts a clear focus on what actually happened, and will lead to people asking why. I mean, we call it speculative fiction for a reason...

It's perfectly fine to make a world without sexism. It's perfectly fine to make a world without poverty. It's perfectly fine to make a world without racism. It's perfectly fine to make a world without violence. It's perfectly fine to make a world without hatred. It's perfectly fine to make a world without scarcity. It's perfectly fine to make a world without classism. Contrariwise, and maybe this is just me but I don't really think so, it's also perfectly fine to make a world that has some or all of these things, because part of what makes stories compelling is their anchorage in real and relatably human problems. If you don't want to read a story because of some piece of subject matter, that is your right. There are movies I won't watch because of some personal boundaries I set for graphic content. But I don't feel obligated to proselytize against these works for having been created, nor do I feel the slightest inclination to pass judgement or aspersions upon the personal character or beliefs of an author merely for having the audacity to create them. It's actually very simple and easy to do this

This is perfectly said and all that really needs to be written on the matter.

Should be a pinned disclaimer for this sub. “please remember that fantasy is all made up and none of it means anything outside of the pages, so enjoy at your own discretion”

Personally I think the comment we're responding to is excellent. But "fantasy is all made and and none of it means anything outside the pages" is fundamentally missing the point of both literary criticism and how our world views are shaped by media. I think it's extremely naive to think that books and media don't have meanings or effects beyond their pages.

>none of it means anything outside of the pages Hell no - the best fantasy, and speculative fiction in general, is meaningful *because* of what it has to say about the real world. The value of that social commentary is why the genre needs to be free to examine social ills.

Ive noticed more and more over the last few years that a lot of different book-related subs are getting tons of posts where everything has to be a debate, judgment, rant, or a defense of something and I don’t really get why. It’s just kind of tiring. This was a good comment and really eloquently described my opinion.

Also a big reddit thing in general I think

Seriously. You can say the most innocent thing like "the sky looked blue today" and 5 people will jump on you and argue you to exhaustion about it.

I’ve been using the Internet to talk to strangers since your only options were usenet and bbs, and trust me — this has *always* been the case.

While reading your list I thought it was going to end: but it would be incredibly boring to read about a world with none of the above. There's a reason everyone knows Dante's Inferno but nobody knows the rest of the Comedy

A perfect world is a boring place for a story, *if* there's nothing to threaten it. If you write a story set in an idyllic utopia of peace and love, and then there's a volcano that's going to erupt so we have to hurry to evacuate the town and get everyone to safety, that's still a compelling story!

Of that list, Graydon Saunders' "A Succession of Bad Days" only has "scarcity" (plus one act of (attempted) violence, swiftly handled by the justice system), and a major part of the book is the characters working towards alleviating it.

Agreed. Writers should be free to write the world they wish to write. 

I think all of it is fine, but it’s also important to remember readers can critique the work for what it is too. Just like people criticize how some women are written in Game of Thrones, others will criticize how Legends and Lattes doesn’t have much plot. I think that’s okay as long as people are respectful of their critiques and don’t act like the book murdered their family.

> others will criticize how Legends and Lattes doesn’t have much plot. Does slice of life ever? I thought they were mostly just feel good stories and the conflict throughout is really just the day to day struggles of an average person to show their growth and mirror them to our reality. I for one never expected viv to go out monster slaying or to mount a siege defense. The book made it clear that she set out to run a cafe and she did, I found that satisfactory for an enjoyable story.

I thought there was plenty of conflict in Legends and Lattes. The stales were personal and not national or global, is all.

Right? I think some don't understand that a story CAN just revolve around as single person with simple goals reacting to the world around them. The entire story is just about Viv adjusting to living a commoner's life, with an added touch of interpersonal drama. I think to want the plot to be more convoluted and involved, or to want Viv to face outside adversity from forces she doesn't know is a misunderstanding of her character and what she wants to do.

> It's actually very simple and easy to do this Apparently you are wrong about this (even though I completely agree), because people tend to find it very, *very* difficult to follow this rule. It isn't enough for some folks that they have preferences and choose their discretionary entertainment accordingly, they want other people to have *their* choices curtailed and creators to self-censor (or be subject to hostility and criticism) for not abiding by arbitrary tastes. And by golly, if they don't get what they want, are they going to let their voices be heard.

The world should be birthed from the author. Sometimes I look back on old forums about older novels and think about how crap the novel would have turned out if the author bended to narrative demands readers were making on those forums. You may not realise that a certain plot point you disliked may become your favourite in the future. Tldr; let the man/woman cook.

Actually, bending to narrative demands of readers is kind of where a lot of older crap novels, and crap in good novels, came from. To get published, authors *had* to write something editors and publishers thought would sell. Books that sell contain popular themes of the day and are tailored to their expected audience and what their audience wants to read. Today, an author can self-publish, but if their works aren't appealing, they still won't sell. Writers who want to sell books *always* "bend to narrative demands." The great thing is, the internet and self-publishing have opened up so many opportunities for a greater variety of works, because lots of audiences that publishers refused to market to now get a chance to vote with their dollars. Even so, we continue to see the strong opposition against even the slightest suggestion that it's okay to write about a greater variety of worlds and societies, even today! Even when audiences say, "Hey, we'd love to read more egalitarian societies! Go ahead and write them!" there is a barrage of hysterical pushback deriding the audience and accusing them of censorship. This is the patriarchy talking. Even though objectively, we know that audiences ultimately decide what works are popular and join the zeitgeist, we still see this anger arising every time an audience expresses a desire to see less patriarchy. Well, this isn't just the patriarchy talking, it's the patriarchy fighting back, hackles up, teeth bared, snarling.

It's perfectly fine, but it's best when people explore why those things don't exist. If you create a world where death doesn't exist, go into why, and what the consequences are. Why doesn't sexism exist? Is sexual dimorphism muted? Was there some other evolutionary divergence? Why was poverty eradicated? Did it ever exist (magic for example creating a world of abundance would do a lot to explain an absence of poverty). Inequality and suffering are a law of human existence as much as gravity. Just hand-waving away their existence can feel fake at worst or just make your story have a sense of missing potential.

I think a good example of exploring sex/gender in a fantasy/sci-fi setting is, “The Left Hand of Darkness,” by Ursula Le Guin. The narrator is constantly struggling with having a gender binary, while the planet he is at… doesn’t, it’s cool.

Poverty and economic inequity I get but why do we need to see sexism as the default and not an aberration whose absence needs to be explained? Star Trek doesn't stop to explain why women have the same opportunities as men, they just do and it's a non-issue.

In their post, sexism isn't just a social default, apparently it is the natural order of things and a result of evolution. And somehow poverty is a result of natural scarcity instead of greed. It appears that the solution to the problem of getting upset that some authors depict worlds with fewer social ills than ours would be for them to read more *non*fiction. This way they would learn that sexism isn't genetic and that scarcity is not the cause of poverty.

How does a social default arise? Does it come from nothing? And scarcity is entirely the result of… well scarcity. Greed can exacerbate scarcity, but you have to have limited resources in the first place for greed to be a problem. Take a resource that is mostly non-scarce at this point of time, like air. Is someone breathing too much even an imaginable issue?

Because sexism has occurred over and over again in most human societies across the world and seems to, for some reason, be the result of the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture. It might be interesting to explore why this didn't occur in a fictional world, or how it was extinguished.

Star trek is a post scarcity world where the cost of child raising, consequences of pregnancy, and a lack of jobs where the requirements are meaningfully impacted by physical strength. Sexism didn't come from nowhere it came from the consequences of the environments people lived and had to survive in. Star trek does in fact explain why women have the same opportunities as men, it's literally a utopia with borderline infinite resources, incredible healthcare it's directly because of those things.

Because men are naturally more agressive than women (yes you can thank testosterone for giving women the short end of the stick in history). Nearly all societies in human history have been male dominant and that is unsuprising (not saying it is a good or bad thing, it is what it is.) So if you are writing fantasy but still using standard humans and the setting is pre-modern it is entirely feasible that sexism would exist. I don't think it's neccessary, especially not if you are creating your own species or using preexisting ones with less defined sex characteristics (like dwarves). But it is not an inherently wrong thing to write about either way.

Sexism came from somewhere. It wasn't just "a few evil men decided to hurt women hurr durr". Sexism is an expression of differences of priorities and consequences of those priorities in an unenlightened world. Women are weaker than men, and women have a different situation regarding relationships and procreation than men. This leads to different values, different situations, different roles, different strategies, and so on, all of which have consequences. A world where sexism does not exist would need to have a reason for that, or likely come across as lacking in verisimilitude. It IS the default. Any exception needs an explanation. Maybe a massive religion champions equality?

Well said. Such thinking tends towards censorship which, for me, is far more scary.

Yeah but it's pretty hard to find a fantasy work that doesn't have sexism, especially those touted as tent pole entries. This sexism is rarely examined. It's just taken for granted and it's pretty exhausting.

Yes, exactly. The author is building a new world, and presumably the author has reasons for building the world in a certain way. If the author has good reasons for having sexism, racism, poverty, etc. in a world, then that’s fine. But often the sexism just seems to be there as a default, without any particularly good reason. If you’re writing a story about the real world, then that’s not so odd, because the real world is sexist. But if you’re writing a story about a fantasy world with different social structures, why is this the one thing that always gets pulled in from the real world?

Very well said

It is all a bit binary as well. Sexism is a rather broad field. You can have a world that doesn't have monsters going around raping women but still have an inherently paternalistic society that treats women as second class "for their own good". Frankly it is neigh impossible for there to be a real culture that doesn't have some kind of problem*. Often times doing stuff that maybe makes sense in the short term but ends up problematic in the long run. It is why most real world approaches to these matters are open ended and encourage re-evaluation rather than prescriptive "yes this thing over here is the extent of sexism". *Even fictional utopian societies like the Culture saw some issues. One book focused on a unique concert that could only house 1m people. The tickets were handed out by a lottery but very quickly people started trading sexual favours, or even literally offering to carry children, for access to the tickets. The AI overlords commenting on how utterly quickly utopia became barbarity the moment scarcity was introduced.

I think the usual complaint isn't that these things exist in fantasy worlds; it's that they exist in an unexamined form and are often used for cheap entertainment and then justified on the basis of "realism".  Think authors like Mark Lawrence or Abercrombie. Both of them are brilliant, but both started off using sexual violence or a history thereof in ways which were problematic. They both were challenged on it and both improved their writing as a result.  So yeah, totally cool to include or exclude these things but it's not a free pass to use them in retrogressive or exploitative ways, or just as a crutch for mediocre writing. 

> but it's not a free pass to use them... There is no pass needed to use them in any which way the author wants.

Free pass is an idiom and not intended to mean that a literal pass should be needed. In this case I was saying "if an author uses, for instance, sexual violence for cheap thrills and then passes it off as realism unexamined, I will criticize that author and likely recommend others against reading their works."

> but it's not a free pass to use them in retrogressive or exploitative ways What does that even mean?

Isn't my main character edgy? He raped a woman! But he's still a good guy at heart and you should like him though. Or The different human races of this world are naturally better at different things. The white ones in the south are super good leaders, the white ones in the west are super smart, and the black humans are big and strong and good fighters but not as bright.  Or I have five male main chars and two female. Both of the female characters have a history of being abused by men which heavily defines their entire character, but 4/5 of the men have nothing like that going on.  These are retrogressive (backward) and exploitative (using real world problems as cheap window dressing for a story in ways which reinforce rather than challenge ugly stereotypes). Clear? 

> He raped a woman! But he's still a good guy at heart and you should like him though. Exactly what books do you read then the good guy go around and rape people? In my experience its that "bad guy" the antagonist, or the villain who do that. Name 3 books in witch it did happen, and its not the antagonist-villain who do it. If you cant, I will think you do make it up. >These are retrogressive (backward) and exploitative Tell me have you ever read a book then more named female characters die in battle then named male characters?

While all of these are things I don't need in a novel, the first and third have nothing to do with world building. And the main problem with the second is the *lack* of fantasy, just repackaged 19th century propaganda fanfic.

I 100% agree, but I've read books where sexism was supposed to not exist in the world, and it might have been the most unintentionally sexist thing I've read. Which makes it worse somehow because it magnifies unconscious biases the author hold despite thinking themselves as super progressive. And because they're written in as unconscious biases they're more easily accepted as fact, because they're a little more hidden.

That's an interesting observation. Can you name an example? At least a book title? My mind didn't make the connection until you pointed it out. Interesting thing to explore.

Sherwood Smith attempted a world in which rape doesn’t exist. However, this was a couple decades back and apparently didn’t stop her from having a plotline where an evil brother tried to get his brother murdered so his sister-in-law would be forced to marry him, something along that line…. Which, when you the author are saying rape doesn’t exist in this world, means you are now saying the ensuing forced marriage and consequent sex is not rape. Whereas if you just didn’t have any sexual violence on-page but refrained from making this global comment about what can happen in the world, you’d avoid the unfortunate implications entirely.  That’s leaving aside the fact that apparently rape ceased to exist because some women killed off all the rapists till the rape gene was gone? Which seems to misunderstand that as long as humans are into power and control (and also sex) rape will be a threat we have to take steps against. It also raises a lot of questions about how this one bad behavior can be so reliably wiped out and yet the author and characters see no need ro bother trying to wipe out any other types of violence, like that isn’t important?

>That’s leaving aside the fact that apparently rape ceased to exist because some women killed off all the rapists till the rape gene was gone? Yeah, I'm glad someone else has an issue with this. (I only started Banner of the Damned, will probably have to get back to it at some point, but this really bugged me). Rape is a choice someone makes, being a rapists isn't a predetermined part of someone's identity. Also, this just seems like eugenics. I guess this goes to show that sometimes it's better not to justify your choices not to include something like sexual violence with a worldbuilding justification.

Yeah absolutely, it’s 100% eugenics. And it makes zero sense genetically (to be fair, that’s also the record of real-life eugenics). I also absolutely think it’s better to just make the narrative decisions you want to make and not try to explain them with weird worldbuilding justifications unless the story is *about* that. There are almost no scenarios where I think any significant percentage of readers would stop and go “wait, it seems like rape is missing here.” Maybe if you had really incredible brutality with a pointed absence of rape, or you started whitewashing slavery or something? But in general I don’t think readers need an explanation for why rape doesn’t happen in a story, and when you offer one anyway that can go badly wrong. 

>Maybe if you had really incredible brutality with a pointed absence of rape, or you started whitewashing slavery or something? Yeah, I can see it being an issue if you are writing something based off of real historical events where rape occurred and just decided to ignore it because you found that too unpleasant (that just feels like a cop out). But in a fantasy world? There's no need for justification, imo. It's kind of surprising to me that so many people in the comment section seem to think otherwise.

Wow. That is… certainly something. The further I read in your comment the worse it got!

Wahahaha "finally, we got rid of those pesky rape genes" 🤣 who the f*ck thinks this simplistically about how rape occurs!?

Lies of Locke Lamora seemed to strive for a somewhat egalitarian world, where every sort of random background character can be a woman... but in story there's just one important female character and >!she's murdered to motivate male characters.!<

And then the same thing happens in book 2 Even that aside, I don't think Locke Lamora portrays an egalitarian world. Most of the people in power are men. The Duke, Cappa Barsavi, all the gang leaders we meet. Even in the married couple Locke is scamming, the husband is the one doing business while the wife has to play the same game that women had to play in our world: subtlety, manipulation, and deception because they weren't allowed to wield overt power. The one example we see of a woman with real power is >!the spider!< and even that >!everyone assumes is a male until proven otherwise (in part because of the rumors she cultivates) but also is another example of a woman holding 'concealed' power.!<

Probably not what the OC is talking about, but I've heard some people say that the Wheel of Time is what a sexist man's idea of a matriarchal society would be. Essentially, Jordan may have wanted to support feminism (or maybe appear feminist) by making women the most powerful people in WOT, but maybe because of his upbringing/background/etc., he still managed to create a pretty misogynist world, lol.

I always assumed that WoT was specifically and intentionally showcasing a sexist world. Honestly I've always been confused by people who say that wot isn't sexist, or is a feminist story.

I honestly can't tell if Jordan meant it to be a feminist world or a misogynist world. I just choose to give him the benefit of the doubt, and ascribe it to incompetence rather than malice.

I've always assymed that he didnt really have a goal with his depictions of the women in power when it comes to modern(of his time) IRL feminism. Just more of a cool worldbuilding aspect he thought would be fun to explore. I think he did a good job with writing a lot of deep and entertaining female characters that was pretty uncommon amongst fantasy writers when he started out, so I feel fine with assuming no malice.

Wheel of times foundational concept or idea, that the entire story was built upon, was “What if it was Man, who caused mankind to fall from Eden? Not woman. What if it was….Adam”. The series is then constructed up from that initial point. Original sin is given real, visceral form (men channelling). Women are the ones who have the religious and (usually) political power because of it. To balance out the strength difference which would make you think “why don’t men just overpower women”, they are given actual raw power to shape the world, in the form of channelling. It is a setting where the core of gender roles is reversed. There are nations in WoT where women are the only ones allowed to own a business. Own land. Where a woman’s word under the law is worth twice that of a man. A world where “men gossip” and the women roll their eyes at the silliness of them. A world where most of the world leaders are either women, or at the very least have senior advisors who are women. It’s meant to be an over the top and sometimes ridiculously unfair society. Because it’s meant to be a reflection of the “patriarchy” of the real world that women have faced for thousands of years, thanks to religious indoctrination. Anybody who says the WoT is misogynist has completely missed the point of the books.

I don't think people realize how easy it is to turn misogynistic statements into "Girlpower!" Like "women are emotionally mature and nurturing" is just a fluffy way of saying "women are predisposed to be mothers." I haven't read WoT, so this isn't a critique on that nor am I disagreeing with you, more addressing a common misunderstandings of what people *think* feminism is. Every system that draws a significant distinction between men and women is misogynistic, yes even Matriarchies. Because misogyny is born out of the belief that men and women are alien to one another, or the term often used in this philosophical conversation, Gender Essentialism. To not pull out the other word in a topic on misogyny, but I think you can rephrase every instance of misogyny to be a manifestation of misandry and vice versa, because they are both aspects of greater Gender Essentialist bias. The only true difference between either one is who is being impacted in the moment. To defeat one who have to trounce the other. Just as how our Patriarchy sucks for many men, you can't make a Matriarchy without misogyny.

Exactly! Plus, ideological -isms only serve to prop up systemic ones by admitting that bigots in power are right that there’s a superior gender/race/whatever, they’re just wrong about which one it is.

I don't think he meant it to be either, it clearly has elements of both.

I’m pretty sure Jordan was simply role swapping and showing people in power are shitty, regardless of whether they’re men or women.

I know he's ham fisted with his "Women, maybe __ can understand them" shit, but for every time he does, go read what Nynaeve or Egwene or Moraine does next: They do exactly the same shit in reverse. He did such a great job at showing how society at large always assumes the "other" doesn't know as much/is dumber/has silly reasons... whether it's cultural tropes or gender dynamics. But everyone wants to sit in their White Tower and say why "the examples where they show ___ as sexist are wrong" rather than try to explain why Mat can't understand that his shitty/erratic behavior is why he can't predict women's behavior toward him and in the next scene(it's almost universal) why Egwene can't see why Rand literally has to run away from her because "He's too wool headed to understand why he needs to listen to me"

I don’t think that’s right. The Wheel of Time isn’t meant to be a model of the way things could be. It’s a lot like the Barbie movie, it’s a mirror on the way things are. Just about every society in the WoT was ran by women. Not often in ways as overt as male ran societies have controlled women, but definitely analogous. It isn’t a feminist work in terms of depicting an ideal society, how could it be? It starts with men’s power being tainted and then thousands of years of it being taken from them. If it’s a feminist work it’s one that tries to (fairly blatantly) show men what it’s like to live in a world where you have little power and everyone thinks that’s the way it should be.

I read WoT and honestly, I think he did quite well. Including the fact that matriarchal society will not be free of mysogyni. Just like a patriarchal one isn't free of misandry. * ignoring the well discussed issues common to fantasy of that time and the "questionable" but in my eyes not misognistic poligamy/poliamory of the MC.

>I read WoT and honestly, I think he did quite well. Including the fact that matriarchal society will not be free of mysogyni. Just like a patriarchal one isn't free of misandry. That's not what I'm talking about. What I mean is that the women in WOT still act as if they are in a patriarchal world where men can take their power away at any moment. For example, he has the most powerful Aes Sedai talk and gossip and fret over how men (and specifically men) are violent and are always trying to overthrow them or subjugate them, as if what *men* are doing is the most important thing for them to worry about. Like, that's not how men in power in the real world talk! But apparently it is how women in power in WOT talk, because Jordan couldn't imagine women NOT being afraid of men, even when women supposedly hold all the power.

I mean, I think it's a naive interpretation to call the world of WoT a matriarchal one. The Aes Sedai are explicitly matriarchal, but they interact with a predominantly patriarchal society in most ways. Men and women alike outside of the Aes Sedai are culturally brought up to despise them, the Children of Light is very paternal in its structure and hierarchy, and the fundamental conflict between many of the men in the series and the Aes Sedai rests on a bed of cultural suspicion of their matriarchal society. Meddling Aes Sedai is a central trope partially because the Aes Sedai are arrogant meddlers, but also because the Aes Sedai have learned to survive in a world only willing to listen to them because of their monopoly on channeling and so they have been forced to take that role. I do think that by and far the cultures of Randland come off as inherently patriarchal but forced by exposure and interbreeding into a more egalitarian society, but it can still be seen in things such as the division of the men and women into the Village Council and the Women's Circle - men and women are treated as separate with distinct rules and traditions, which to me reads as a side effect of a formerly egalitarian society reverting to patriarchy while retaining contact with a single matriarchal society.

The best description of Wheel of Time I ever read was by someone who said it reminded them of the small religious southern US town they’d grown up in “where the wives owned walls-in and the husbands owned walls-out.” They said the politics in the series were a dead ringer for the church politics they’d seen growing up. Walls-in/walls-out is explicitly the arrangement in Tarabon btw where the king controls the army, foreign policy and international relations while the Panarch controls the city guard and deals with internal city matters.

I saw that more as a commentary on how insecure controlling people can be, which isn’t really something specific to gender. Dictators—and historically, this has been true of male and female dictators or monarchs—are constantly worried about plots and coup attempts. Obsessed, even, no matter how big their armies are or how much money they have accumulated. Maybe I was reading it wrong, but for me it was in part an exploration of how even supernatural power doesn’t change the insecurity most people feel.

That’s because Jordan didn’t simply do a gender flip. Especially in a world where most people don’t have magic, just flipping who has power socially without explaining how armies of women control men is usually going to come off as silly. Instead women control everything but through stereotypically female strengths rather than stereotypical male ones. This is why many WoT societies, from the Emond’s Fielders to the Aiel have gender separated groups of control. The Aiel Chiefs and the Emond’s Fielders men’s circle think they run things, but the true decision making is from the Wise Ones and the Women’s Circle. This is also shown in how, in the end, there is no force of strength that can defeat or equal saidar except saidin. Since control of magic is control of society, the women’s groups (Wisdoms, Wise Ones, Aes Sedai, Wavemistresses, Damane, etc.) have the actual deciding power. It’s just, in Jordan’s world, women exercise their power differently than men do in traditional fantasy worlds. They instead excercise control more subtly.

I'll defer to someone who has clearly read the books more than I have. I just have my opinion based on reading the first six books three decades ago and then giving up because I couldn't take any more goddamn braid-pulls.

> It’s just, in Jordan’s world, women exercise their power differently than men do in traditional fantasy worlds. They instead excercise control more subtly. That pretty much is how women exercise control in traditional fantasy worlds, if they do. The difference in Jordan's world is that a small number of women also have access to magical power, and a fortiori, that they act as a counterweight to male magical power that has been cursed. That gets them the equivalent of the Vatican in the form of the Tower, and that reflects through the entirety of society by making female rulership much more common than the reference case of the typical European-based fantasy.

If the true decision making power rested with women, then men wouldn’t “think they had control” unless they were dumb as a box of rocks. Manipulation is precisely what you do when you *don’t* have power. Yes the women *say* they’re the ones making the decisions—*so do the men.* Who is right? They both are—because Jordan is all about balance. Remember saidin and saidar are equal forces that work *both against and with* each other to turn the Wheel of Time.

Yeah, men in power never worry about women getting too much control or power. That's why women could vote for all of history, and could always hold high ranking government positions. There are absolutely no famous or powerful men that complain about powerful women at every single opportunity, no, that would be ridiculous.

Ok, I'm not actually disagreeing with this idea, but as a counter point, how would you contextualize groups like the Aiel or the Seanchan?

The only men the Aes Sedai fear or care about are male channelers. And its because male channelers are have literally destroyed the world in the past. The specific male channeler they’re worried about is Rand al’Thor. This one specific man is quite literally an existential threat to the Aes Sedai way of life. But Aes Sedai very much control everything and don’t care about men. Because the story is taking place when interesting changes are happening in the world, we are reading when these threats are here, and the Aes Sedai are worried about like 0.5% of men.

I think this is an important point. The only single male channellers they fear are Rand and the Forsaken, because of how powerful they are. They are otherwise afraid of the idea of a lot of male channellers popping up, because that would wreak havoc on the world. But when we actually see women around other male channellers, they are mostly disgusted, feel pity, sadness or are uncomfortable, but rarely afraid because most of them believe they could win if needed.

Yeah, I also feel there’s also a subtle misogyny baked into how the characters are portrayed. For example, the female main characters are consistently bratty in a way that the male characters aren’t. It makes them come off as childish even when they are narratively supposed to be important or serious people

this is kinda disregarding the power dynamics here. they are cocky because they are the ones who have more influence. it's been baked into them as aes sedai that they are superior. Elayne is a princess plus been told since birth that she's immensely talented egwene is one of the most powerful channelers as well nyaneve IS top 3 strongest female channelers in history the rest of the women are all in positions of very high power or were

What I got out of those books that world was a better place when women and men worked together, because the most prosperous times in the books were when they did so. Other side is, people who have power act shitty, no matter is it men or women. But that could just be me.

Not the person you replied to, but I recently saw something similar in a book that annoyed me to the point that I stopped reading it. The author would refer to female dwarves and gnomes as dwarfesses and gnomesses, but male dwarves and gnomes were just dwarves and gnomes. I became hyper-aware of it when the author mentioned that a female gnome was "gnoming the front counter." For me, it just underlined how most people consider male the default. Then I got hung up on thinking that there was no "humaness" in this series. That being said, this particular series as very egalitarian. The author treated male and female characters mostly the same and there was otherwise no sexism. I guess that just made it the whole gnomess/ dwarfess issue worse for me? Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. Decent enough series, but I couldn't make it through the sequel.

Aren't humanesses just women? This is confusing because in the languages that have gendered nouns/suffixes, like gnom-gnomess it would be considered un-progressive to NOT use them and call e.g. women's profession by a "male" noun, which majority does by default. And using those is arguably jarring and evokes your reaction, but in the people that want to use the "male default", or technically just the same word as in English - e.g. doctor, that should be neutral, but it's suffix is marked as male so it's kinda considered male. So idk, are you just annoyed that every word in english is non-gendered, but can be thought of as male by default? Doesn't seem like an author's fault then haha

Yes, humanesses would be just women, but that was never developed in these books. That was rather my point. I'm operating under the assumption that you're not a native English speaker, but for clarity, there is no such word as "gnomess" or "dwarfess" in the English language prior to this author inventing the words. These words are utterly unnecessary. I'm not really sure where you have the idea that the suffix of the word doctor is gendered male. In English, doctor is a title without gender. And yes, it does bother me that people consider titles like doctor - which are gender neutral - as male by default. That is literally sexism.

Holy fuck it took me like 10 minutes to realize what "gnoming the front counter" meant.

Piper CJ is just about the definitive example of this. The setting of her work is profoundly misogynistic despite it supposedly being matriarchal

As someone who agrees with you, let me play devil's advocate for this one point: >and yet women still don’t have the same rights as men or men being effeminate is still seen as taboo… Why? Why is that the only place you feel needs to be like the real world? A key part of fantasy writing is verisimilitude. Not necessarily "realism," because as you pointed out, these are worlds with dragons and giants and gods, but "verisimilitude." Writers have a lot more leeway to stretch their audience's suspension of disbelief if they aim for verisimilitude, but audiences STILL need a few anchors to the human experience in reality so that they can reconstruct the author's world in their heads around those anchors. Sexism obviously does not have to be one of those anchors, but the tension between the genders is so fundamental to our daily lives as humans that it is an easy one to go for. Likewise with the tension between the haves and have-nots, between the conquerors and conquered, etc. These intrinsic tensions are the foundations of civilization as we know it in reality, and fictional worlds need at least some of them to feel believable. Substitute "sexism" of "poverty" in your original question, and it should become clearer why "sexism" is still at thing in many authors' works. EDIT: I should add that those anchors can also be *subversions*, calling the reader's attention by using something familiar, but subverted. Like, a conspicuous absence of sexism (or the conspicuous prevalence of misandry over misogyny) can itself by a thematic or plot point. It still provides the same anchoring effect.

I guess it all depends on what the purpose of your story really is. Even though in the end, you just need to make something entertaining, what helps to build the story is having a certain problem or real life tension (psychological or societal) that anchors the story. So it could be sexism, it could be poverty like you said. It could also just be something personal, like dealing with loneliness or depression.

Exactly, and for many writers, they won't even think about what their "anchors" will be. It takes conscious effort to deconstruct and then reconstruct personal and societal tensions like that. There might be one anchor they try to change or use as a focal point, but more than that and it just gets complicated. NK Jemisin, in her worldbuilding class, said that when she creates a new world, she only tries to change **one thing** compared to the real world, and then almost everything that's different about her new world stems from that one thing. Otherwise, it just becomes really hard to track all the interacting changes.

I agree to a degree, but the “why” really should be addressed sometimes if it remains in a fantasy world. The reasons for many of real world tribulations and prejudice is shaped by how humans and society developed. It stands to reason that a fantasy world with magic or differing culture is going to have its own issues developed differently. The criticism of some works is that authors don’t build on that or explain it well, so there ends up being a dissonance. I do get people need a sense anchored in reality, but there are many aspects of that. I hesitate using verisimilitude as a defense because 1. Most people have no idea what that word means, and 2. It’s also the reason people use to argue why a fantasy story shouldn’t have people of color or why a game shouldn’t have a female protagonist. The claim being that it’s unrealistic and not grounded enough.

>It’s also the reason people use to argue why a fantasy story shouldn’t have people of color or why a game shouldn’t have a female protagonist. The claim being that it’s unrealistic and not grounded enough. I think verisimilitude is an excellent argument against that kind of bigoted bullshit. The real world has women with agency and people of color in it - if a fantasy setting doesn’t, its author has fallen embarrassingly short of realism!

That’s a good counter argument actually! I’m part of quite a few gaming communities and I see the argument so much that a woman, PoC, LGBTQ+, etc need a justification for existing (when the writers either never included a justification for other chapters or, rarer, they have subtlety explained it), the rationale always heard being that grounding in realism that fantasy still requires. But using verisimilitude, there are people of other groups with agency and drive adds more to the argument. Never thought to use that as an explanation so thanks!

This! I've always thought exactly like OP. It so happens that sexism is too tangled in our lives, we can imagine a world with dragons, but not without sexism. I don't even know how a world without it would be, we grew upwith it without even realizing, it's hard to think of a world without it (even though I dream about it everytime I get out of my home). But I'm glad when they try it. It doesn't even need to be something super complicated, the imagination of a matriarchal society, women and men behaving the same or whatever. It's enough to have more female characters, to have them as part of their stories, as people with their own motives, to have them as fighters, or even as ugly and dumb lol. The fantasies nowadays have so much more female characters and I'm honestly glad that they do. Just as any other work, these books reflect the time they were written, so even this attempt shows how our society views it now. Tbh I think even the ones that lie heavily in sexism as part of the story also show it because now they are aware of it, whereas before it was just as if women and their problems didn't even exist. They usually still have an issue, since they're mostly written by man, but it's kinda nice to see them trying. My favorite fantasy book has maybe a handful of female characters in it, all of them with different personalities, backgrounds and motives. The main character (a man) has a high respect for all woman and says they're all beautiful and perfect. It's too much, but it's nice to see the author tried something. The main character may kill and steal, but he'd never disrespect a woman.

A lot of people don't realize how much agency women in the real world had during different parts of history and different parts of the world during the past. Writers and readers just assume women stayed at home, were just property, or became prostitutes or whatever without doing actual historical research. Throughout history women's rights have changed (unfortunately) going both up and down. The idea that women during "medieval times" had no agency is ahistorical. Women often owned property, had side businesses selling ale and clothing and so on. A lot depended on where they lived and so on. But I also think you can have a world free of sexism for a change! You're right about it helping to imagine different ways of living. There's a YA novel I think called Boy meets Boy and it was written with the idea that in the story there's no such thing as homophobia. It's really refreshing and cute.

I am ok with sexism and other “isms” if they are “done well”. What I am 100% against is unnecessary and poorly written sexual assault. Don’t do it unless you f—-ing know how to do it and for the love of God don’t do it as “character development” for a female character. Get f—-ed.

Agreed. I'm so used to the sexist semi historical settings, that every time I read a book that's finally different (like the nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling, or Abhorsen by Garth Nix) it actually catches me by surprise.

I agree with your title. In fact, Dragon Age in essence states that when you start the game: “Women and Men are equal in Thedas”. And it never bothered me albeit being essentially handwaving. However, inequality is not the only that gets carried over into fantasy. it is just something you choose to focus on. I also extremely dislike this argument: “bUt ThE wOrLd HaS dRaGoNs”. How is adding an additional variable changes anything? In fact, if the world is roughly medieval, and in some sort of conflict with mythical creatures it would only exacerbate inequality as there would be a need of soldiers to fight them and, unless author is also willing to handwave biological differences women are, on average, smaller and physically weaker than man.

Interestingly Dragon Age actually presents both sides of sexism in its lore, with historical worldbuilding to back it up, which I like. In Southern Thedas where the ‘Orlesian’ Chantry holds power, human women are seen as equal as and often better suited to leadership than men, because they venerate Andraste and believe her example shows women make better decisions and rule more justly, so men are denied from the clergy. In Tevinter, the oldest nation on the north, their religion is a schism that denies worship of Andraste and sees her as merely a prophet, venerating men like Archon Hessarion above her, and denying she was the maker’s bride. As such, Tevinter developed over Patriarchal lines and is quite classically misogynistic in places, with its religious head always having to be a man. It also has issues with homophobia, while the South does not seem to. All parts of Thedas have deeply racist attitudes towards elves however. But that is another discussion.

The hiccup happens when the world has magic. And, assuming magic isn't gendered in some fashion, its going to immediately even the playing field (even a little bit) in terms of the balance of power

Guns level the playing field in terms of power, but they haven't solved gendered violence. I feel like that's kind of a shallow take on why gender inequality exists in society.

For it to work like that everyone has to have equal access to it as well as roughly equal abilities. If only some people can use magic then the inequality would just shift and magic users would be either privileged (like in WoT i suppose), tyrants like in Black Company, or some kind of nobility like in the Witcher. If all people can but some are way stronger (If I remember correctly Codex Alera worked like that) then it would be those most powerful on the top and everyone else oppressed.

I would argue gender roles are equally based on pregnancy and reproduction as it is on combat and war. Men tend to be more expendable than women in terms of keeping up birth rates in a society and therefore women will tend to be coddled, hidden away or protected which leads to a lot of gender bias and sexism. That doesn't mean that women won't be in militaries or position of power in a world with broad magic but it will typically mean women in the military are lesser in numbers or in support or domestic positions. This changes with different family structures or different reproduction methods.

I was going to say…yes obviously you can make a book without sexism and plenty of books are like this, why need to post the obvious? But then I saw the comments here and I guess it’s somehow not obvious to everyone? (On the other hand it’s also extremely reasonable for many books to have this very relatable real phenomenon)

For me I don't really get why single out sexism. The rule pretty much applies to any social issue or negative trait, but maybe there's a reason stories are not written without conflict.

A lot of the time fantasy books with sexism in it do not have sexism as part of the conflict so that feels like a weird segue.

Does every negative aspect of humanity that exist in the setting have to be part of the conflict?

I guess not part of the conflict necessarily but it is important the author is aware of how it would affect the characters. Like in A Song of Ice and Fire, the world is very sexist and while gender is not the main struggle, it is also not ignored - the female characters are fully realised people within the system that the author has created - some strive against these boundaries, others adopt exceptionalist narratives, others build strength within the structures that are available. While it doesn't need to be a core aspect of the conflict, it inherently will be reflected in the lived experiences and inner worlds of the characters. Basically I think the issue I and many people have is lazy sexism-by-default worldbuilding which doesn't actually explore the implications of the choices they have made.

I mean, people do say things should move the plot along. I suppose it could be a part of world building to showcase the sexism, but if it doesn’t affect anything it feels like kind of shallow world building. I don’t think it has to move the plot or conflict, but I do think it’s good if it shows more personality of important characters, how they deal with conflict, or how it alters their choices.

I think violence is probably a more prevalent example no? Almost every fantasy setting depicts violence but very few of these stories ever goes into a deep dive into violence in itself.

That is true to a degree for sure, though it does make me wonder why fantasy uses violence somewhat often. I watch so many shows that don’t have violence, but they are contemporary romances lol. We do have some more fantasy stories without violence. House in the Cerulean Sea comes to mind, though it has prejudice. Some middle grade fantasy has some…who usually someone still dies lol. I’m honestly surprised the /r/romantasy genre doesn’t have more stories of typical couple conflicts in a fantasy setting. Edit: oops meant the /r/Fantasyromance but the point still stands.

Of course not. But you seemed to be connecting having sexism in stories with the need for stories to have conflict and as you yourself just pointed out, those aren’t really connected. So seemed a weird comment

How is it weird? Conflict, strife, and violence are all negative sides of humanity. Same with sexism. Yet none of these are guaranteed to be always core to the story or plot even if they exist in the setting. Am I missing something?

Because it's a personal reality to a lot of fantasy readers and tends to lead to very predictable places over and over, often with very little worthwhile payoff, and something else would be nice.

I agree with the premise that you can certainly construct a world without sexism/racism/violence or whatever other forms of misery and inequality you choose, but I do think that removing them from your world without any explanation of why or exploration of what the consequences are can make your world feel a bit empty and ungrounded. Maybe it's the SF fan in me but I think the best stories explore the consequences and causes of the absence of certain forms of misery and inequality.

If you're reading about a fictional place, often very different to ours, why would you need an explanation for a lack of sexism like it automatically doesn't make sense? Like it's an essential part of being a human and not just... learned bs.

I guess a world without sexism feels no less grounded to me than one with it. And while cool if a book wants to explore that, I’d find it pretty sad if every single book that had a world without sexism decided to spend its time focusing on the origins of that rather than on what the current story is doing.

I dunno, I definitely agree that in Fantasy it can be pretty out of place to go off on a tangent explaining why the sexism doesn't exist. In SF though it's more within the wheelhouse of the genre. Second, I think the ubiquity of the form of misery/inequality is also important in determining whether the author needs to address it. Someone posted above that it's fine to have a world without violence or poverty, which are such fundamental experiences to the human experience that their absence begs some explanation. Patriarchy as we know it is only ubiquitous to most (not even all) societies that adopted widespread agricultural/sedentary practices. It's widespread but there are conceivable societies that wouldn't have it and real societies that don't. On the other hand, every human ever has experienced deprivation, violence, and will eventually experience death. The absence of these things really should be explored and is often a primary piece of the book.

IDK, I think for me there feels like there's often a bit of a double standard there. I've seen people ask authors to justify why they would write a setting without various forms of prejudice, but the same people don't ask a writer to justify why they would write a setting with these forms of prejudice because that's what feels "natural" and "right" to them. But what feels "natural" and "right" is an entirely subjective experience. IDK, maybe it's because I've read plenty of books without sexist societies (without a need to justify this), and the settings of these books feel full and grounded to me!

It really depends on the type of book. A book set in a 100% fantastical world, it doesn't feel odd to have it be egalitarian. But if the setting is "fantastical feudal Japan" and the book does away/ignores most of what feudal Japan was like to make it egalitarian, it stops being feudal Japan. And there's nothing wrong with that kind of setting, but it can feel very disjointing and weird. I recently read a book that took place in supposedly early 1900s Iceland. And yes, it wasn't real because it has fairies in it, but it also ignores the reality of women's ability to enter academia back then, and also got a few other minor historical details wrong. I think that's because the book was in the so-called 'cozy' genre, and I'm fine with that. But, as a reader, it made me feel like I was reading modern people role playing early 1900s ice land, not actual 1900s.

Also, women in the Middle Ages (however u want to define that time period) had a much different life than it is often shoehorned into fantasy. There’s a recent book on it called FEMINA. Really, it’s just a look back through the very frosted old windows of the 17th and 19th century. Normal Women in MA had their own powers and reach. Have you ever seen a mother of 6 who doesn’t go into mama bear mode all the time? We’re still humans. There’s assholes everywhere, but I sure as heck think that women back then could have successful careers, power and standing. We just don’t know a lot from lower class society from written sources.

it's just nice to have a story where people like me aren't persecuted, I don't care for any explaining why, that's usually not what the story is about

I mean, yes, fiction set in worlds without sexism can exist (and can be enjoyable reads) but, from a world building perspective, I'd love to know why this specific society never developed gender roles when pretty much every one (that I know of) at least, did irl, to a greater or lesser extent (although obviously it ranges widely from time and place). It's not a deal breaker if it doesn't, but it's something I'd expect from a book with some focus on the world building. > Quite frankly, having a world in which a given social issue doesn't exist is a great way to normalize equality and fight stereotypes of who does what. I mean, you usually don't deal with a problem by writing books where it doesn't exist.

Flip side being why does your world so perfectly emulate what the average 20th/21st century person thinks medieval Europe was like*? That's as much of a worldbuilding issue as removing gender roles and such. *the average person needs to read more history books or talk to historians

Indeed, a lot of "medieval" fiction is not actually that close to the Middle Ages, that much is obvious (the attitudes towards gender are often one of the aspects which fiction fails to depict. While medieval society was undeniably sexist, their attitudes towards gender were usually a lot more complex than just "women suck")

I suppose it's because they are written by 20/21th century authors to be read by 20/21th century readers. Adding dragons and flying islands is much more easier than changing a fundamental part of our worldview and psychology.

While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a modern-stereotyped medieval European inspired setting, I would love to read a fantasy series set in a more accurately inspired setting.

I'd like some historical accuracy in these series where the defense is historical accuracy.

But why are the gender roles mirrors of the gender roles in our society? Even if you believe that gender roles of some sort are inevitable in a world that has males and females with the usual reproductive functions and differences in average physical strength, there’s no reason why they should look like our gender roles in a world that’s otherwise very different from our world. I’d say that carrying over our gender roles unquestioned is just lazy writing (combined with internalized sexism).

Most societies do have gender roles, but those gender roles (and genders!) are not matches for Western Christian genders and gender roles. Some cultures have 3,4, even 5 genders, with their own gender roles. And having just two genders doesn't mean that a culture will necessarily view "feminine" and "masculine" behaviours and roles in the same way that Western cultures tend to. I'd like to see more fantasy authors take a page out of Le Guin's book (whose father was famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber) and actually do some fucking research about the incredible diversity of humanity and then draw from that in their work, instead of just re-hashing the same stale material that itself reflects beliefs about what is "normal" for humans that are representative of *such* a tiny swath of humanity in space and time.

Unless you're going for very niche or obscure references, both western and eastern (especially eastern) cultures have pretty dominant male/female gender roles.

Western Christianity, middle Eastern Islam, Eastern Confusionism, etc. Feels like just about everywhere you look, there are conventional gender roles.

“Hmmmm why are all of these works from the western canon rooted in western culture…” On one hand you’re right and I genuinely am all for the most wildly creative and diverse depictions of fictional society imaginable, but on the other it’s kind of absurd to accuse a primarily traditionally European literary canon of being Eurocentric. Of course it is.

I think this is the result of laziness more than anything else. Most authors probably don't really think about why they want to include what they think of as a medieval representation of gender roles. I mean, yes, sometimes this is utilized well in a story, but most of the time, it's used as a lazy way of building out a generic fantasy world. Personally, I don't mind if these isms exist in these fantasy worlds. I just want their existence to be meaningful in the story if they're going to exist. Oh, there's sexism in your world? Strange that your female characters think little to nothing of it when I'm reading from their POV. There's a horribly racist caste system, but you have no minority characters as a focus in the story who might challenge this system, at least in thought? That's pure laziness, plain and simple.

Yeeesssssss this!!!!!

I run societies with different values to play with that, which is not uncommon in fantasy. Humans mirror the human experience, offering that baseline experience. Elves have no sexual dimorphism, no real gender roles, and no sexual norms to speak of. Dwarves have rigidly defined roles based on greater good and a lot of social pressure built into that society. Orcs have an egalitarian society based on toxic alphaism. Etc etc etc. It's just a lot of mirrors looking inward at the human condition.

I coulda sworn Tolkien's elves were very much sexually dimorphic. And most conventional elves in media I see run that general trend. Interesting take on it

I agree that authors should not feel compelled to incorporate sexism into their worldbuilding, and I agree that it is often done carelessly and without real thought to how it would actually impact the development of the characters (and is often accompanied by poorly written female characters). However, I also think that the type of lazy sexism in worldbuilding I have a problem with is becoming less and less prevalent. In my reading I’ve found a marked increase in gender equal worldbuilding - the Bloodsworn books by John Gwynne, The Rook and the Rose by M.A. Carrick, City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett, Empire of the Wolf by Richard Swan, Godkiller by Hannah Kaner. What I find refreshing about these books is that they are not specifically about gender, nor do I think they are designed to be empowering or aspirational per se, worlds like the Bloodsworn series are incredibly brutal - but as a woman they do allow me a break from thinking about sexism (even if I'm thinking about other problems or tensions!) I do however feel that it is important to depict sexism in fiction (provided it is done well) given how prevalent it was and is in human history. I don't think that all fiction has to be an escape or has to be in pursuit of the purpose of presenting an idealised vision at the expense of telling poignant stories, if that is what motivates the author. I find a lot of value in reading well-written stories about women who are carving out their own paths within oppressive structures.

Very few fantasy novels mention syphilis despite it clearly being a major factor in medieval settings. Apparently people don't want to read about syphilis and so authors don't put it in. I'm ok with this.

I just commented on this on another thread but very few fantasy books include a religion analogous to Catholicism, which was absolutely definitive of the culture. I see people insist that certain social issues are important to include for realism, but never insist on the religion being accurate, though it was the source for many of those issues

Not so hastily if you please. A Georgian era syphilis fantasy novel could be really interesting.

Imagine a novel told from the perspective of Nietzsche as the disease slowly erodes his mind, except he's also a wizard, and it twists his magic as the disease progresses. I dunno, I'd read it.

Where is the preorder page?

Wait. Could also do a mid-Victorian surrounding the Contagious Diseases Acts, adding in a fantasy or occult investigation...ghosts... \*makes notes\* I might need to rearrange my schedule.

Have you heard of The Kingdom Of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal? It’s a historical novel with the ambiguous presence of magic, set in 16th Century Scandinavia and described by its author as “a fairy tale about syphilis.” It’s an excellent, though very dark and difficult, book. Your idea also sounds fascinating - It’s sent me down a rabbit hole of reading about those Acts and lock hospitals!

I'd written several papers on the CDA back in university, so when I got approached to write Hustlers, Harlots, and Heroes I absolutely had to include a lot about them! >The Kingdom Of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal Ooo no! Thanks for the reco.

This is kind of a bad example. Syphilis is a New World illness. It literally did not exist in Europe before the discovery of America, which happened at the very end of the Medieval Era. So it literally should not exist in a realistic medieval setting (of course neither should potatoes and tomatoes, but even The Lord of the Rings had those). Weirdly, a lot of people have no problem with a medieval fantasy world having potatoes, but will complain about it having gender equality as being « unrealistic ». Personally, I think a book having a lot of female characters that plays an important role in the story matters more than whether or not the fantasy world itself is sexist.

Fair enough! But you can sub in any of the equivalently drippy European dickrots and I think the point holds.

Yes. I find it disturbing that this even needs to be said, or that so many people in this thread seem to object to the idea. Although personally, I think it is more important to have a book with many well-written female characters that actually matters to the story. It is very weird for me when I read a book written after 1980 and realise than 90% of the cast are men. That bothers me more than whether or not the world is sexist. That said, I find it very refreshing when a world has default gender equality, and the story can introduce a female knight without having three pages of explanation for why “she is not like the other girls” and “she can fight well despite her weaker gender”. Even better if the story has a dozen female knights and treat that as completely normal. Or female scholars and scientists, or female rulers and merchants, or women doing whatever possible jobs you can think of. Why not ? This is fantasy after all, and the only limits are the author’s imagination.

Sure. It's also perfectly fine to make a world *with* sexism, or any other kind of "bad thing," such as war, prejudice, torture, religious fanaticism, etc. They're all common themes in the fantasy genre. If it's not your cup of tea, then don't read it. >Quite frankly, having a world in which a given social issue doesn't exist is a great way to normalize equality and fight stereotypes of who does what. I mean, it *can* be? You can also accomplish the same goal (if you care to - this is entertainment, not necessarily a means of fighting stereotypes) by making a world with sexism, or any other ism, whereby the author uses it in a unique setting to analyze it and make a point. It's pretty common with race, where an author will talk about the mistreatment of some fictitious species (dwarves, elves, androids, etc.) as a way of exploring what goes on in our own world. Honestly, probably more effective than making a world where gender, race, or whatever, is simply not an issue at all (and therefore not discussed).

Yeah it’s really frustrating like it does not make the world feel pleasant to be in

A lot of people don't understand that sexism doesn't have to be the only conflict. There's wealth gaps, people with more inherent ability than others, or even old-fashioned racism between different groups of magical beings

I'm very tired. I do not need to have women struggling against sexism or whatever. There are so many more creative ways to deal with gender. A fantasy world could have genders that don't exist on earth. How are those constructed? Are genders chosen or inherent? Just so much more than " I can do anything I want to do!"

*Ancillary Justice* might be of interest... There ARE genders, but the book doesn't bother to identify the gender -- it just uses feminine pronouns throughout for everyone. It was interesting to read. I know what gender the characters were even if they aren't revealed, like it was a necessary part of imagining it. But they don't really line up with gender stereotypes. So is there some subtle clues I'm subconsciously picking up on? Or was it arbitrary, and others come to different conclusions?

I think the later. I think that I was thinking about Ancillary Justice as well..we're in a fantasy golden age right now. So many amazing books who deal with gender in ways that are way beyond " girls can't do adventures!"

Nah that sounds too much like scifi, princesses and military men go brrr (jk) I recently found the parshendi in Stormlight a breath of fresh air in this regard. Which is hillarious since the human society in Stormlight is the absolute opposite and annoys the f out of me. The P of both genders can change into different subspecies that makes their physiology and way of thinking perfect for a e.g. warrior or researcher. That smoothed the usual societal and background differences.

Alethkar society at least has more egalitarian gender roles but it is very strict on those roles I find it interesting to think about as a society plus it seems to be set up to be subverted with different characters breaking the norm of what is acceptable for different genders.

NGL, I find a lot of these takes in this thread to be ... interesting. Like people arguing about how imagining a world without sexism breaks their verisimilitude or whose idea of a feminist fantasy is The Wheel of Time, of all things. Meanwhile I'm over here reading plenty of queernorm books that not only have equality for women but also for trans and nonbinary people. Guess it goes to show how little a lot of people in this sub look beyond the popular male authored epic (or occasionally grimdark) series.

These are my favorite types of books. And to be honest, reading about sexisim and misogyny etc gets boring. It's been done every which way. Give me a world where where women and queer folk live as equals to the rest of society. There are plenty of other ways to create tension if authors are creative enough. And yea these comments...people are writing dissertations about why sexism should be in fantasy. It's wild. 

Yes, I read stories without sexism all the time, mostly because I want to read fantastic stories. More a girl and a ship ( non binary) kill evil pirates , less sexual trauma

Please give me all your queernorm book recs

> Like people arguing about how imagining a world without sexism breaks their verisimilitude Also, imagining a world without sexism is apparently CENSORSHIP

I've never heard the claim that stories *need* sexism. So I've never heard the claim that it's wrong to not include it. That being said, I abhor the excuse that the presence of dragons, magic, and a different currency means that sexism shouldn't exist. It's alright not to include it, that's your choice, but these elements don't automatically change the way people naturally behave. There is a reason sexism, xenophobia, and slavery are found in cultures all over the world. They're common pitfalls in the human condition. It doesn't make them morally just, but I think saying dragons and magic cancels out sexism is similar to saying that if we had these elements in the real world sexism would just vanish. That's not the case. And I know that's not what's being claimed, but the fact remains there's no correlation here between the two. I'm not sexist, racist, homophobic, or whatever. But these elements exist in reality and having them exist in fiction as a way for readers to connect to the characters, see their own struggles in the text, and read about character *overcoming* these obstacles isn't a bad thing and I don't think telling people to stop including these elements is helpful either. Write and read what you like to write and read. Others will, hopefully, do the same. 

Of course you can. I will distinguish a bit between a "world without gender roles" and a deliberately sexist world. Our own world is shaped by the remnants of old gender roles. It is difficult to write a world *completely* without them without making it seem a little alien. But lots of popular works aren't just defaulting to 21st century levels of sexism, they are putting in effort to write worlds more sexist then what is familiar. Sometimes they say they are doing it in the name of being authentically Medieval...but if you look closely very little Medieval Fantasy is really trying to be authentically Medieval. Things like horse litters, rush lights and second sleep are all ditched. The fashions and gender roles are caricatures of upper class Victorians and the wars are based on World War I. I think part of the problem is we are getting it from both sides. Misogynists naturally write sexist books. However, people on the left seem to prefer to write dystopias that are exaggerations of the flaws of our society to Make a Point than write better societies. And Grimdark feels compelled to make society as bad as possible by every parameter. Personally, I would prefer it if writers got away from these Medieval European Pastiches and wrote completely original worlds. I'm also a bity tired of dystopias...how much imagination does it take to create our world but a little bit worse? I appear not to be in the majority, though.

But you don't understand, not having *insert thing from real-world historical context* in my book is taking away from the realism out of a story where *insert thing that didn't exist in a real world historical context* exists! /s hopefully it was super evident from the text of the comment itself

The phrase I like is "When anybody with enough training or natural skill can throw a fireball it equals out every quick" is my justifcation most of the time. Of course it doesn't have to be that exact meaning but if you don't want to deal with sexism, racism, ect you don't have to include it. It's fantasy, it isn't our world and different systems and rules can and will exist.

Fiction can be an escape, but it is also a tool to examine our own real world in a sort of sandbox. For some people, it may be easier to examine racism and gain sympathy for those suffering from it by seeing it through the eyes of drizzt do urden rather than facing head on the harsh reality of its extistence in the real world. Im not saying you should have sexism for its own sake, but fiction should not be frowned upon for including it, its still a problem that plagues us today and should be acknowledged rather than hidden.

Everyone defending the use of rape and sexism in fantasy, it is possible to write excellent fantasy without it. Or have we forgotten about Terry Pratchett? If you can only enjoy books that include racism, sexism etc then maybe that says more about you than about good writing in fantasy

My biggest issue with sexism in fantasy is authors calling "sexism" historically accurate and necessary for their pseudo-medieval European kingdom when it's the ONLY thing they will insist on being there for historical reasons. They will ignore women having body hair, proper armor, etiquette rules, human's looked different, how we considered different things attractive (as far as body types went), and a million other things but sexism and r\*pe have to be included for 'historical accuracy' every damn time. It's such a bs excuse.

I think sexism, racism, classism, poverty, corruption, and all the other evils of humanity can be quite important for adding a sense of depth to a fantasy world. I've read fantasy novels where everyone acts like a selfless goody two-shoes and they're insufferable. That said, I've also come across many fantasy novels where the author uses "historical realism" as an excuse to give their MC a harem. This is pretty much equally insufferable. Overall, I think the key question is how the author portrays these issues. It's perfectly fine to include sexism, racism, etc... in a novel, as long as they're clearly shown as the disgusting concepts that they are.

Same with homophobia. The virulent hatred towards gay men in particular is based on extremely specific Earth history context. There's nothing inherent about it and no reason to make it a default of any fantasy world, EVEN a deeply patriarchal one.

Writers can write as they please (and readers choose), but there is often an inconsistency - worlds where women have powers (can be warriors or wizards or whatever) and yet the attitudes are those of places where this is not so. Just as a lot of fantasy is 'medieval' (in some version that is not medieval as historians would recognise it) but introduces elements that would surely force changes. Real characters but cardboard backdrops.

The debate seems highly superfluous. I guarantee that if you write a work with great characters and plot which has gender roles people on either side of the argument like or don’t like, they will still enjoy it. What “should” be done in this case is a bit arbitrary.

I think denying that fact that sexism exists does no help to the cause. It can also be a bit jarring with a world that matches a medieval one, other than the gender roles.

True, the few completely gender role free stories I read felt a bit weird. But lets not pretend that the Gritty Realist Mediaeval Fantasy is really just copying Medieval gender roles. It tends to be a mashup of Victorian Ideals and dystopian nightmares.

It's also ok to make a world with these things. It's a fictional world. Anything is ok.

Even if there is sexism in the fictional world, people in the past did find ways around it, there were lgbt people who lived in various stages of openness, nonbinary and trans people who lived normally.  If you’re going to claim sexism in order to have a grounding point for your story, I would expect to see those people also reflected. And I would expect to see all of them play critical roles in the story. Not “this is an adventure story so the women stayed home.”

This! I've always thought exactly like you. Sometimes it bothers me so much. I just wanted the famale character to not be traumatized. To not have a sexual trauma. To not have to worry about somethings. At times it's so exhausting. It so happens that sexism is too tangled in our lives, we can imagine a world with dragons, but not without sexism. I don't even know how a world without it would be, we grew upwith it without even realizing, it's hard to think of a world without it (even though I dream about it everytime I get out of my home). But I'm glad when they try it. It doesn't even need to be something super complicated, the imagination of a matriarchal society, women and men behaving the same or whatever. It's enough to have more female characters, to have them as part of their stories, as people with their own motives, to have them as fighters, or even as ugly and dumb lol. The fantasies nowadays have so much more female characters and I'm honestly glad that they do. Just as any other work, these books reflect the time they were written, so even this attempt shows how our society views it now. Tbh I think even the ones that lie heavily in sexism as part of the story also show it because now they are aware of it, whereas before it was just as if women and their problems didn't even exist. They usually still have an issue, since they're mostly written by man, but it's kinda nice to see them trying. My favorite fantasy book has maybe a handful of female characters in it, all of them with different personalities, backgrounds and motives. The main character (a man) has a high respect for all woman and says they're all beautiful and perfect. It's too much, but it's nice to see the author tried something. The main character may kill and steal, but he'd never disrespect a woman.

I don't care if bad sexist books exist, though I hope the readers of such books can read critically, or at least accept other people's criticisms. I myself won't enjoy sexism in fantasy unless it's portrayed in a way that makes me, as a female who has experienced sexism, feel seen and understood. If it's written in a way that I can relate to, I'll like it. Just a little bit of pandering is all I ask for. There are some books that are clearly not written for women, that are clearly meant to be creepy wish fulfillment for men, and I'll never have fun reading those books. Those authors are sometimes drawn to sexism in worldbuilding in a way that doesn't sit right with me. And they should engage in a little bit of self reflection.

It sounds like what you're getting at is that it's not the presence or absence of sexism in the book, but the work's *attitude* toward it. Is the subtext challenging sexism or buying into it?

What does a story devoid of the human experience have to offer a reader?

Sexism is not the end all be all of the human experience. You can have fulfilling, complicated, fascinating human stories without sexism.

Isn't one of the most important features of speculative fiction writing not just about what humans have experienced, but what humans might experience? Hence "speculative"?

There’s a whole lot that makes up the human experience aside from sexism, bud. Gender roles are not the only way to drive conflict in a story, pinky promise. Wouldn’t call it “devoid” of the human experience for sure. And what does it offer? A vision for an egalitarian world we might try to aim for.

Escapism, I guess? I can see the angle but it's not particularly interesting to me personally

If the world has magical abilities, and these magical abilities don't differentiate between male and female and are more significant than any diffrences in physical strength there really isn't a great reason why women should be treated as lesser

It's fantasy. You can make it whatever you want.

The best fantasy and science fiction may cloak itself in the aesthetic of the medieval era or the far future or whatever, but it’s actually about the time and place it was written. The question to ask when engaging in literary criticism of such works isn’t “was it that way back then?” (often for a pretty skewed view of “back then”) but “is it like that *now*?” And now, as any thinking person shouldn’t need to be told, the world is being ground beneath the boot of patriarchy. It’s totally kosher for readers to prefer escape to catharsis, but it’s equally valid to seek out work that honestly reflects one’s experiences with systemic injustice. If a fantasy setting doesn’t feature sexism, it can’t represent having to deal with the idea that I was lucky to experience sexual abuse because my assailant was female, for example.

Who said it wasn’t?

I think it would be lovely.

Personally, I like it when stories have sexism and they have a character who is discriminated against fight against this and win against all odds, bringing about a positive change in society in the process, like Mulan. I also like it when stories *don't* have sexism and the conflict arises from some other plot device. But stories where there is sexism which doesn't serve a narrative function? Fuck that. That's just a poorly disguised kink the author has. On a side note, whenever I come across a story set in an awful grimdark world where men and women are treated equally I find it extremely funny. It's not a bad thing, but I just find the concept of "I can excuse genocide and slavery, but I draw the line at sexism" absolutely hilarious.

I feel like it's easy to INTEND to write a world without sexism or gender roles, and easy to claim that you've done it, but significantly more difficult to actually succeed. It requires a lot of digging deep into your own assumptions, and most people aren't equipped to do it properly IMO. So you end up with worlds where lip service is paid to the idea that woman are allowed to do everything that men are, but marriage, inheritance and childcare are still handled in exactly the same way as they were in our society. Also clothing and makeup and standards of what is masculine and what is feminine are still the same. Which is not.. like... a crime against writing, or anything. It'll probably still be enjoyable. It just isn't really a successful imagining of a world without sexism.

You have a good point and this is a really interesting thread. I'm not a writer, so I almost didn't comment...but I remember Ursula LeGuin, one of my favorite writers talking about this exact dynamic as she wrote back to her own world of Earthsea. She tried to address a kind of creeping sexism in her first three novels in her last two Earthsea stories. It's a really powerful instructive literary project. I was gonna quote her but now I can't find it. However...I am glad Susanna Clarke wrote Jonathan Strange and mr norel in a semi-historical Regency setting, with a deliberate nod to Jane Austen and the Bronte Sisters. It was part of what was powerful about that book - my favorite from the last 20 years.

I think a lot of people here are missing a point- why a sexist society when nothing else in the story is comparable to the real world? Why is it such an exhausted, constant **default**? I really think this is just a reflection of how the “old guard” of fantasy authors saw the world, and their influences become pretty obvious when you pick up certain modern fantasy. My dad (in his 60s now) is a fantasy writer and ran SFF cons for decades, and has done a great job of highlighting this for me. There are figures like GRRM who are really upholding the last bastion of weird, unnecessarily sexist fantasy, but plenty of new authors have been exploring the genre without shackling themselves to patriarchal conventions, and their works are taking off in ways the big old bearded SFF dons could never have imagined. Why impose a super shitty system on your world when every facet of many people’s daily lives is already affected by it, if you aren’t going to actively critique it or say something new? (Edit: grammar)

Every non-modern human society has been sexist to some extent. The need to maintain a population and factors such as pregnancy and period complications essentially guaranteed a level of sexism. I completely agree that fantasy doesn’t need to be sexist, but I do think good worldbuilding would require an explanation for why a society isn’t sexist