Gender treatment in fantasy, according to Bakker

[salinea]

Still from Pat's Fantasy Hotlist, interview of R. Scott Bakker, about the Prince of Nothing epic fantasy series which I reviewed here.

- The genre exhibits a strong (albeit recent) tradition for subverting gender stereotypes by presenting worlds in which strong, independent female characters are plausible or even expected. Yet your world is as patriarchal as the reality that inspired it. I expect that this theme makes up for a good part of the discussions you have about your creation, possibly detracting from what you actually want to talk about. Is it difficult to resist the temptation to put something like a bad-ass tomboy warrior-princess with snappy dialogue and a heart of gold into the books?

First, let me say that I think I should be called out on the carpet on this issue, simply because I cover some pretty troubling ground. I certainly don’t believe in "quota characterization," either to be politically correct or to broaden the "gender appeal" of my books. Leave this for the after-school specials. I also don’t think that depiction automatically equals endorsement. The question that people should be asking, it seems to me, is one of whether I reinforce negative gender stereotypes or problematize them. If the books provide enough grist to argue this question, then the answer, it seems to me, automatically becomes the latter.

But the fact remains that a lot of people get hung up on my female characters: On the one hand, I self-consciously chose the harlot, the waif, and the harridan for my female characters, yet some seem to think a kind of unconscious moral defect chose them for me. If so, it would be a truly colossal coincidence that I would happen to pick the three misogynic types - I mean, isn’t it obvious that I’m up to something critical? On the other hand, I wanted my fantasy world to be realistic, to temper our yearning for premodern times with a good look at how ugly things got, particularly in times of war. When bad things happen to my female characters, it’s the circumstances that are being criticized, not the characters themselves!

But people get hunches while they read, and once they do, confirmation bias goes to work (and this is simply one among many reasons why we always buy our own bullshit), and the text, I think, possesses more than enough ambiguities for people spin any number of self-validating interpretations. It’s when they insist their interpretation is the only interpretation, or even worse, that it captures what’s really going on in my bean, that I become baffled.

Now, I'd argue with the form of the question (it's arguable whether it's a genre convention "to subvert gender stereotypes by presenting worlds in which strong, independent female characters are plausible"...), but the subject of females characters in that series is certainly interesting.

For those who haven't read it, the world presented is indeed inescapably gritty and brutally violent, especially against women and there's a strong sense of realism to it.

Of the three characters that Bakker mentions, though, I'd say that only Esmenet, the "harlot", is a real success, she's the only one that can be seen as sympathetic and strong, and her story is compelling. The two others serve more as plot device than anything IMHO. The "harridan" doesn't even have a PoV and is intensely creepy (not that creepiness is exceptionnal in those books ^^), and the "waif", Serwë, is victimised, shallow and stupid enough that despite the sympathy I felt for what she lived through, I would never say I found her interesting as a character.
I do agree about Bakker's point about "problematizing", which is worthy enough, although in this case one should also take into consideration the context of the genre, because if every story is one of gritty realism, then the problematization may be more of a reinforcement than he would think.
Then there's the issue which he fails to mention, which is the treatment of sex and sexuality, and of the bad guys of the setting utilisation of sex in extremely creepy way, and how it relates to his treatment of gender.

Thoughts?

Comments

[ciage.livejournal.com]

I followed the link from FeministsFantasy. Never posted there, either.

Anyway, not having read the series, here's my two cents.

Even with my own writing, I think as a female, I'm more aware of certain stereotypes and tropes than and I'm also more condescending of female characters than their male counterparts--in other words, a male and a female can exhibit the same character traits from similar upbringing, and as a female, I'm more likely to be condemning of the female (usually for various reasons, but usually, I just find them to be objectified twits). Even to keep having these conversations I think alludes that there is still gender inequality at least insofar as expectation. Then again, this is coming from a wannabe writer who reads mostly men, and is annoyed by the lack of characters I usually can identify with (at least, that aren't villainesses).

To play the devil's advocate over here, it's difficult to not soapbox with a given character one feels strongly about, and the harlot might speak for all the harlots in a given world if only because we only get to know one, rather than the entire brothel/cityworks. Personally, I find it easier to explore a more developed character who exhibits negative traits that I identify with, which might be why some male authors can only write certain ‘types’ of women.

Anyway, to get on the topic of females in gritty subjects, I usually like it more when male authors go on about it. I’ve noticed some female authors use rape to make us feel sorry for/sympathize with characters, or simply rape/maim characters the author doesn’t like. But to be fair, the novels I’m talking about generally speaking aren’t gritty fantasy.