Quote:
Originally Posted by Geralt
I am amazed by the western obsession with gender in just about any fandom/art. I'm not a westerner so I look at it from the outside.
This social justice movement is so concentrated on literature, video games, fashion....any creative field, you name it and the gender within it.
To me anything creative involves imagination, fantasy and sprinkle of magic. Criticizing it, demanding things to be banned or taken down, pointing out flaws does nothing. At best it amounts to academic critique, but usually it's just a bunch of opinions being touted through the world wide web. If something violates your sensibilities and worldview, vote with your valet. Don't buy it, don't read it. You don't get to decide what should be made and what shouldn't. You are entitled to your outrage, but to me you look like a brat who didn't get the things the way the wanted.
Also, there is this strong disregard to context of when the work was written and by who. But I know why, that doesn't matter, it's all about getting your outrage out there in social media, stirring some water, and having your ego stroked, maybe getting some deals out of it too.
The real social justice movement I would like to see in the western europe and usa would concentrate on the poor and the middle class, distribution of wealth, and citizen activism. Working in those field would set a shining example for the rest of the world. But that actually takes work and entire lives. It's so much easier to read a book/play a video game or whatever and cry boo-hoo over twitter or blogs, this hurts my sensibilities.
I'm a woman and I read fantasy all the time. I don't care if the protagonist male or female. I don't care if the book is politically correct or not. If the setting is a shitty world, shitty things will happen to characters. All I want is great story.
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Not that I have the same viewpoint as the author of the article, but I do think the concept of gender is important and authors today especially in Sf&F should at least think about it. At its core, gender just makes the important seperation between the natural sex and the social constuct of gender.
What I don't get in articles like this, is the demanding of actually deconstructing classic gender roles or even worse, like this article, just wanting to see the gender roles one would like to see or ar ours today (and also just a construct happen to change). And the unability to see that of course gender roles where different in different times.
One does not have to show different gender roles, but maybe show, how they define a person and how they restrict them. One good example would be Caitlin from Game of Thrones.
Beeing conscious about what defines a character and a society is important for authors, I think. Decisions should be deliberate. But they did not need to overlap with my world view, and that is were my point of view obviously differs from the one in the article.