Women in Sci-Fi and Fantasy/Game of Thrones

[Irulan]

Tbut I didn't see any mention of Brandon Sanderson or Patrick Rothfuss. Two of the best contemporary fantasy authors IMO, though not many women characters.

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I got halfway through the second in his series and had to put it down as absolutely nothing was happening. 700 pages of nothing happening.

I'm always fascinated by the range and variety of what's out there for people to enjoy, and how we are all so different in what appeals to us.

[lph]

I had the same reaction to many of Robin Hobbs' books. I love them, but I keep waiting for the plot to actually go somewhere substantial. It does, eventually, but in the meantime you'd better enjoy the characters!

[Eden]

I read a really good series recently by Lynne Flewelling - the Tamir Triad - full of very strong women and a bit of gender bending (it's crucial to the plot, so I won't give anything more away)
The Bone Doll's Twin
Hidden Warrior
The Oracle's Queen

She also did (does? not sure if there will be more) the Nightrunner series, which in addition to being just plain old good fantasy, also has well rounded and non-sterotypical LGBT characters

[OakLeaf]

One thing I really loved about Ancillary Justice is that the narrator speaks a language that has no gender, and to "translate" the narrator's thoughts into English, Leckie uses generic feminine pronouns, even with respect to characters that she identifies as biologically male. It's pretty much incidental to the plot, other than a reinforcement of how many of the characters are distinctly post-human, but it forces the reader to confront their own gender stereotypes CONSTANTLY.

[Don Deitz]

Catherine Asaro has some great sci-fi. Some really great and very strong female characters. It's an inter-stellar empire political/battle series of books. Some of her descriptions of faster-than-light travel and other technologies are short and very readable but there are a sentence or two in those sections which are very enjoyable if you took a few graduate classes in quantum mechanics. You don't need to know any science to appreciate the novels.

[OakLeaf]

Robert Jordan ... admitted he didn't feel able to write female characters so hence no ladies in his first book of "The Wheel of Time" series. He said he was going to use his wife to help him write female characters.

That just strikes me as incredibly lazy. He only knows one woman? And rather than get to know a few of the other half of the world's population, as maybe just some kind of prerequisite to being a writer, he wants the only woman he knows to do his job for him?

Contrast that with this, from a recent interview with Max Gladstone:

When I’m writing a new character, especially in a fantasy, I try really hard to reject the idea that ol’ straight white normally-abled cis Max is the Default Norm Human. It’s just not true. I hard about who my characters are and what they could be, demographically speaking, and then build those character traits into the story.

[thekarens]

I think that saying "you write what you know" may apply. I don't see anything wrong with a writer not writing about women, men, blacks, whites, whatever if you don't know them/understand them or know enough of them to truly understand them.

[Catrin]

Thanks for all of the reading suggestions, I've added some to my list. I also want to get back to writing myself - it really is for me more than anyone. I am considering joining a writers group this winter, we will see. Since I am pretty much confined at home right now, and I feel well enough to read (finally), I checked out an electronic version of one of the Nightside novels by Simon Green from my library recommended above. I do like how it is starting, perhaps I've a new series to read through

[Don Deitz]

I have discovered that I enjoy novels by women more than I expected. Much better characters and more deeply and richly defined. The different point of view is refreshing as well.

Catrin - I don't know what you like to write, but please work on it.

Don

[lph]

Hi Don,

Ok, I'm curious and I have to ask - why are you on a cycling forum for women? This isn't a closed forum, of course, so anyone can read and post, but you should be aware that we've had heated debates in the past about men participating. Some don't mind, but there are regulars here who are quite protective of the women-only atmosphere.

[OakLeaf]

I probably shouldn't, so for those who mind, you can stop reading now and for the rest, apologies in advance for the meta drift - but the conjunction was just too glaring, to me.

Some don't mind, but there are regulars here who are quite protective of the women-only atmosphere.

I don't see anything wrong with a writer not writing about women, men, blacks, whites, whatever if you don't know them/understand them or know enough of them to truly understand them.

Hey girl,

I know you get really tired of explaining male privilege to clueless guys. But thank you for doing it. The thing about privilege (whether it's based on race, sex, gender presentation, sexual orientation or whatever) is precisely that those who have it don't have to be aware of it. The test of character is, when someone learns to be aware of their privilege, what they do with that information.




I'm not innocent of this [me Oak, not Ryan Gosling]. I live in a pretty segregated place. I didn't choose it because it's segregated - all other things being equal, I'd be a lot happier living somewhere more racially diverse and egalitarian - but I'm well aware that I'm able to live there without major hassles, because I'm white. And that race was something I didn't have to think about when I chose this neighborhood. It's not something I'm proud of.

If a man wants to write women out of his own life, well, his male privilege allows him to live a pretty full life while doing that, and given the above, it's hard for me to object to someone's personal choices that way. But a writer … to me, their work is supposed to reflect the world - not necessarily the entire world, but a reasonable cross-section of it. For a writer to write women entirely out of his works, especially when he has to create a whole fictional world in which there are no women (rather than choosing a historical setting where segregation by sex was the norm) - and to be explicit about doing so because he doesn't feel that women are an important part of the world, or that getting to know people different from himself is a very big part of a writer's craft - to me, that's just not OK.

[thekarens]

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree. If you disagree with a writer and how he writes you can vote with your money and not read it. I'm fine with a writer not including women in a world he made up.

[TrekDianna]

Connie Willis! Hooray for Connie Willis and her time-traveling heroes, female and male. I wish her futures would happen. I'd like to be a historian.

The Doomsday Book - one of my all time favorites

[Don Deitz]

Hi -- I try not to make a pest of myself here since I understand it is on Team Estrogen. I can understand why some women want this to be restricted to women only so I rarely ever post anything. So why am I even a member of the forum?
1. I do cycle. (Until I crashed and cracked the frame. Will be looking for a new bike in the spring.)
2. I asked Renata over 2 years ago if I was OK to participate in the forums.
3. Other than these few posts I doubt I have posted more than a few times in the past 2 years.
3. Because of a medical issue I do wear sports bras when I cycle and run. I was shopping for a new bra and asked if she could recommend a few. I chose the Shock Absorber Run Sports bra.

[OakLeaf]

OK ... let me break it down a little better ...

In our culture, places where women can come and hang out and feel like the default plane of existence is that we are going to be safe, heard, and respected, aren't the norm or the majority of places. That's what "male privilege" means - women can't just walk into a strange place, be it an online forum or a neighborhood bar, and expect that we're going to be taken seriously, or even that we're going to be safe. That's why many women find it really important to preserve an online space where we CAN expect that respect and safety.

This is a cultural phenomenon that goes way beyond major negative experiences of particular women, and is represented much more often in microaggressions. But as lph pointed out, in my memory we have had one male stalker on this forum targeting a particular female forum member, and several "creeps," although the admins have been stellar (as they are with most things) in nipping that stuff in the bud. That is all much LESS than most women have to deal with in our daily lives, and that's an illustration of why this space is important to us.

We also have a small number of men who participate respectfully. By "respectfully," I mean they add their experience or ask their questions about cycling when it's appropriate and gender-neutral - such as traffic skills or bike handling tips, for instance - but they don't belittle women's contributions, deny or ignore our experiences (neither of which you have done here, I'm not saying you have) ... or insert themselves into social conversations that have nothing to do with anything except women's experience of the world.

Some of us - me included - would be a lot more comfortable with your occasionally contributing to a thread like this *if* you'd participated more in threads related to this forum's raison d'être, cycling and other sports. It raises a question in lph's mind, and mine, as to why you would choose to hang out and talk about science fiction and fantasy here, with women who are strangers to you, in a women-oriented space. You wouldn't just walk into a physical bike shop and engage the first stranger you saw in a conversation about books, would you? Even more so if it were a bike shop that catered primarily to women, sold only women's clothing and primarily WSD and smaller-framed bikes, right? That's what Team Estrogen is. A bike-accessories shop that sells women's gear, with a great big lounge in the back where the customers hang out and chat. We get to know each other by talking about bikes or other sports, which is what brought us here in the first place, and as friendships develop, we step aside and shoot the sh*t about whatever, too.

So. I speak only for myself. I'm just a customer and a participant, not an admin. From conversations we've had here in the past, I'd say I'm pretty much in the middle of active forum participants, as to whether men's presence is welcome here. As you already know, the admins say men can join, and I personally am comfortable with that, though as lph said, there are also some who aren't. I hope I've explained the reasons why some women here are uncomfortable with the presence of men at all, and why some would be uncomfortable with your personal participation in this particular thread ... though the bottom line is, part of being a safe space is that forum members will challenge you if you violate our boundaries, whether you understand the reasons or not. It's basic good manners to learn and respect those boundaries.