Should I Keep Reading Sexist Fantasy Novels?
By Madeline Goldberger
Art by May Thet Naing
In Week 1, a guy in one of my literary lectures said his favourite book was The Name of the Wind. ‘Typical,’ I thought. ‘He likes a book with a powerful, all-rounder, male main character, who is surrounded by an impossible amount of beautiful, talented women who are attracted to him.’
But then I thought… ‘Oh yeah, I hope the third book comes out soon.’
I do actually love The Name of the Wind. But when my friend recommended it to me, she said ‘it’s awesome, but the female characters are all super beautiful, super skilled and super one-dimensional.’ Thanks Bec. You were right!
I also just finished reading this awesome epic fantasy series called Mistborn. I loved it.
Problem is, out of the 13 main characters in the first book, one is female. Vin. She’s awesome, and powerful. But even the secondary characters, servants and random townspeople, are also mysteriously all men*. The series eventually yields two more female characters, both love interests for the main characters. Ugh.
Sexism in fantasy sucks.
I’ve read reviews on Goodreads from women saying they had to stop reading Mistborn because they were so uncomfortable with the lack of, and attitude towards, women in the book. And while I was aware of this, and it definitely made me uncomfortable…I kept going.
I wanted to know what happened next. The storyline, and mysteries of the world kept me intrigued.
For whatever reason, this issue is a really big thing in fantasy. Game of Thrones was wrought with rape and incest and torture. Is it still okay to watch? I don’t need to talk about the fact that marginalised groups need better representation, because obviously they do. But as a consumer, a reader, a viewer, I know my dollar and my attention should be spent wisely. So is my continuing to read Mistborn - and paying the author to do so - morally wrong?
As I noticed the problems with Mistborn, I tried to stay vigilant. Every time something sexist happened, I highlighted it, noted what was wrong with it, and then moved on. And if I was going to recommend it to anyone, I would mention this glaring problem. I’m trying to practise conscious, critical consumption.
Other people dealing with this issue in the fantasy genre are rightly angry about things like how ‘Arya has to battle tooth and nail to be allowed to wear pants and learn swordplay’. And that a lot of the fantasy genre ‘has drawn inspiration from the LOTR (The Lord of the Rings) books – where female characters are clearly not the focus.’
Probably the most helpful content I found on this subject was from NPR. A teacher said that teaching classics is complicated because they can be problematic. But they have so much staying power, and are worth teaching because they are generally examples of good writing. She made sure to teach the students how to read critically, asking questions about what resources the author used to write it, what the reaction from the marginalised group was, and how we look at it now.
So is this enough? Can we keep reading things we like as long as we understand what is wrong with them? Personally, I think so.
A good step would be to seek out more female-authored content, regardless of genre. But in the cases of the books I’ve discussed, they are on the best modern Epic Fantasy lists on Goodreads. If you like to read the most popular literature, these titles are unavoidable.
It’s a fine line between ‘I’m consciously consuming this’ and ‘I am gratuitously justifying not putting this book down’. But, realistically, I’m not going to start thinking women can’t be good main characters. The problem is more when you can’t identify problematic qualities of media.
The decision to keep reading may not be right for every person, or every piece of fantasy content. But in these cases, I thought it was.
Okay. I’m going to go read Circe now.
*For those who have read it, yes Shan can be considered a ‘main’ character but she SPOILER: gets killed early on.