One Woman in the Justice League
Just one woman, maybe two, in a team or group of men.
Also watch Jimmy Kimmel’s "Muscle Man’ superhero skit - “I’m the girly one”
The Avengers:
In Marvel Comics:
“Labeled “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” the original Avengers consisted of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hulk, Thor and the Wasp. Captain America was discovered trapped in ice in The Avengers issue #4, and joined the group after they revived him.”
5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.
Modern films (MCU):
The original 6 Avengers were Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow.
Again, 5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.
Justice League
In DC comics:
“The Justice League originally consisted of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Aquaman”
6 / 7 original members are male. Only one is female.
In modern films (DCEU):
The members were/are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg. (+ introducing Martian Manhunter (in Zack Snyder’s Justice League director’s cut))
5 / 6 main members in both versions of the Justice League film are male, with appearances by a 7th member in the director’s cut who is also male. Only one member is female.
The Umbrella Academy (comics and show)
7 members:
- Luther (Number One / Spaceboy)
- Diego (Number Two / The Kraken)
- Allison (Number Three / The Rumor)
- Klaus (Number Four / The Séance)
- Five (Number Five / The Boy)
- Ben (Number Six / The Horror)
- Vanya (Number Seven / The White Violin) Later becomes known as Viktor and nonbinary in the television adaptation after Elliot Page’s transition but that’s not really relevant to this.
Here, 5 / 7 original members are male. Only two are female. Only slightly better than the other more famous superhero teams, and they had to add another member (compared to Avengers’ 6 members) to improve the ratio (maybe executives still demanded to have 5 males).
Now let’s look at some sitcoms and other stories.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
4 males, and 1 female slightly less prominent character who is abused constantly. The show claims to be politically aware and satirical but gets away with a lot of misogynistic comedy, tbh, that I’m willing to bet a lot of people are finding funny for the wrong reasons.
Community:
Jeff, Britta, Abed, Troy, Annie, Pierce, Shirley. This one is a little better, 3/7 are female. Notice it’s always more males though, they never let it become more than 50% female, or else then it’s a “chick flick” or a “female team up” or “gender flipped” story. And of course the main character, and the leading few characters, are almost always male or mostly male.
Stranger Things:
Main original group of kids consisted of: Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and El (Eleven). 1 original female member, who is comparable to an alien and even plays the role of E.T. in direct homage. When they added Max, I saw people complaining that although they liked her, there should be only one female member. 🤦
Why is it ‘iconic’ to have only one female in a group of males? Does that just mean it’s the tradition, the way it’s always been? Can’t we change that? Is it so that all the men can have a chance with the one girl, or so the males can always dominate the discussion with their use of force and manliness? Or so that whenever the team saves the day, it’s mostly a bunch of men doing it, but with ‘a little help’ from a female/a few females (at most), too!
It’s so fucked up and disgusting to me I’ve realised. And men don’t seem to care. I’m a male and this is really disturbing to me now that I’ve woken up to it. How do women feel about this? Am I overreacting?
Once female speaking time reaches 30% or more, males believe that the females are dominating the speaking time.
Female encroachment on what has traditionally been considered male spaces is not taken well. Female empowerment is considered taking from deserving males.
Essentially the general male population don’t like females, and only tolerate them as a subservient subclass who should be seen and not heard.
EDIT: This should probably annoy you a little too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4
And it may also explain why people complain that there should only ever be one female character - it minimises the chances of males having to watch two females interact, because that would be excluding the male experience and they couldn’t possibly relate to two females interacting.
EDIT2: comments in that video do claim there are more scenes… whether or not that really adds much is up to you.
Female encroachment on what has traditionally been considered male spaces is not taken well. Female empowerment is considered taking from deserving males.
The problem is that in the context of a “winner-take-all” society it does do that though.
Obviously the general solution is to make a society that is overall more equitable between those who succeed & those who don’t.
But if you aren’t going to do that then you will get a reaction from those who are losing ground, even if that happening is the morally progressive outcome.
Essentially the general male population don’t like females, and only tolerate them as a subservient subclass who should be seen and not heard.
This is a WILD claim to make.
It’s a wild world.
Yes, but not like that
This is one reason why shows like Ms Marvel and She Hulk tanked so bad.
Who complained about the female led movie Alien (93% audience rating on rotten tomatoes)?
I think the issue is that the movies aren’t written well. Rey in the third trilogy never saw a challenge she couldn’t master on the first attempt. A story about a character born perfect and never faltering isn’t fun
I’d say the latest star wars movies were shit. It had nothing to do with Rey being a woman or even naturally gifted. Finn, Grumpy Luke, Swolo Ren (other poorly written characters), the writing team and the plot points (a spacecraft the size of a city needs to refuel but a lightsaber that can cut through anything has an infinite energy source) the writing team chose, should all share the blame. If your criticism is levelled at Rey alone, your argument isn’t worth hearing.
I don’t have a problem with the character, just the way she was written especially in the second film, I didn’t watch the third. And that film was terrible. The plot was bad, all the characters were bad, their adherence to star wars space stuff was bad
I don’t know if the writers were bad at their job or whether they were required to change it
I think the issue is that the movies aren’t written well. Rey in the third trilogy never saw a challenge she couldn’t master on the first attempt. A story about a character born perfect and never faltering isn’t fun
John Wick gets a pass, though?
You can’t really compare the two movies, John Wick takes the route of being so over the top to the point of becoming funny. I don’t think they were aiming for that with the new SW trilogy.
You can’t really compare the two movies,
I’m not exactly, I’m asking why:
A story about a character born perfect and never faltering isn’t fun
Can be true, but also John Wick can never falter and that be fine. Kinda seems like a double standard to me.
John works where Rey doesn’t because he’s had the career and experience to back up what he does. Other characters are terrified of him, he’s been in the setting long enough to become a legend.
Rey a scavenger in the arse end of nowhere goes from knowing literally nothing about the outside world and starting at about the same power as Luke’s ability in new hope to by the end of that first movie Luke’s ability in return of the jedi with no training involved.
John is an example of a legend in action, an unstoppable force, it’s satisfying to watch because the film does such a good job of building him up. That one with the mob boss talking about the pencil comes to mind. Rey gets none of that, she’s just great at everything without trying. She can fly a ship like the falcon on her first go ever flying a space ship well enough to out fly trained fighter pilots. Luke at least has flown similar ships in similar situations before the death star run.
One that is better is when she beats Kylo with the first time using a saber because it shows she is letting the force guide her so it makes much more sense why she can do it.
There is also the fact that John gets punched in the face, kicked and beaten…and then gets back up to wipe the floor with the enemy.
Showing female characters getting their arses handed to them is not as commercially popular.
If there’s any universe in which it makes complete sense for someone to be born ultra powerful completely at random, it’s Star Wars and superhero movies.
I love The Force Awakens but I know someone who complains that it’s really distracting that the three main protagonists have a black guy and a woman, and it’s “trying so hard to be woke” that it spoils the film for him. He really truly honestly believes that he’s not racist or sexist but the “blatant DEI” ruins it.
NONE of the the main 9 star wars films are particularly subtle or deep, but they’re great fun, and if you can’t get over one of the lead characters being female or one of the main characters being ridiculously powerful for no other reason and you try to justify that in terms of consistency or good writing, you’re definitely using double standards.
I think he should reconsider how racist and sexist he is, and I think bleating about Rey being effortlessly at Kylo Ren’s level in the force isn’t worth the effort you put into justifying it.
There’s a thing in movie writing that’s called the suspension of disbelief which is the mechanism of being involved in a story by “what do I have to believe in order for the movie to make sense”.
SW3’s premise is the classical hero’s adventure, where the main character undergoes a journey of betterment. And in this particular case, if you already are the best there is no journey.
John Wick’s premise is “this guy is going to kill everyone” frome the minute one, you just sit down, switch your brain off and enjoy what he’s doing for the next two hours.It’s not about the sex of the character, is about how the character is written.
The bit I didn’t say was I meant such a character in a hero’s journey style story
It works in that genre. The main guy in Nobody also was pretty good from the start. The fast and furious flicks also don’t do a great deal of character development
Those all have characters presented as good at whatever the movie is about
deleted by creator
Oh don’t you hate that? Happens too often, especially typing on my phone and the cat or the spouse
needsis asking for something so I’m rushing to finish and BLARGH! It’s ruined!
The core complaint is for femwashed stories, where the male lead has been replaced by a woman.
It’s very similar to Hollywood movies taking movies from Japan or China and then turning the Asian lead to a Euro-American.
The level of hatred for this type of content is very strong as it feels like a farce or fraudelent, like someone is trying to sell you a fake designer brand item. Everything that made the item great is absent in the fake one.
On top of that, there’s a clear fascist takeover in the US from the rainbow liberal, evangelical and social capitalists. Fascists have weird superiority and inferiority complexes including towards women. But don’t worry, Chinese movies will become popular soon, so both sides of the US political aisle will have to adjust.
Why do men complain?
Because when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
Using males to mean men is as weird as men who says females when they mean women.
Most of the males are matched with females (two were more solo). The poster was consistent.
What’s an inclusive term for both men, teenagers, and boys?
Why when a lot of those males aren’t men, they’re boys.
At that point, you could say “male characters.”
I was talking about the people complaining about female characters in media lol. Those people are usually males who are often not (chronologically) mature, making it strange to call them men. I guess some of the characters might not be men either. But yeah we could say male characters rather than e.g. “7 characters: 5 males, 2 females” etc. But it could get a little clunky. Also I’m just not sure what the problem with it is, since saying “males and females” has always been acceptable to me and a basic component of language until patterns of differential linguistic treatment were observed between genders: “men and females” etc, which I understand could be offensive on a gender basis and agree can promote sexist attitudes. I already thought it should either be “women and men” or “females and males”, using the equivalent terms in the same context consistently (though somewhat interchangeably), but for there to be an inherent issue with using “males” and “females” even when we apply them equally seems like a separate objection that was new and unexpected for me. I’m curious to find out why that is that some people don’t like those terms in general, and I think maybe we should question it, because I have a feeling it could be tied to feelings of human entitlement and the problematic (imo) belief that humans aren’t animals, as used to justify speciesism. But I could be wrong.
Yes, we get that, but I think they mean that when incels call women “females” it’s cringe as hell, because we know it’s coming from a place where they don’t think of women in a healthy way, so this comes off as stooping to their level
Yes, that’s what I meant. Thanks for explaining it better!
Yeah I’m aware of the problems with saying “men and females” but I thought the issue was more about a double standard of using different terms for different genders… If we say “males and females” and use the equivalent terms for both, is there a problem with this? Because it’s not treating them differently so I don’t really understand
I think, as with many things, it is about context. When doing a scientific reproductive study about “rats - 5 male, 5 female” it makes sense to use biological descriptors, and when paramedics do it in a biological emergency, etc. A good way to understand it is via other similar trajectories, like racism. Would you consider it reasonable to refer to a “white man” while referring to another “man who’s a black”? For example only a few decades ago you might have heard a cop in the US (or South Africa, in Afrikaans) say e.g: “I saw 5 men leave, and 2 of them were blacks” vs what you would (hope to) hear now: “I saw 3 white men and 2 black men leave”. Look at those 2 sentences substituting “white, black” -> “male, female” and “men” -> “people”, and that should highlight the point (in a slightly grammatically clunky way though because I don’t have time to come up with a more elegant example).
In your examples, I would definitely think we shouldn’t use differential/non-equivalent language between different groups of people/members of society, including races or genders. So that includes not saying “white man” and “man who’s a black” -> I would think this should probably be “white man” and “black man” or “man who’s white” and “man who’s black”. I think being consistent with our language used to refer to people is important to not promote or uphold discrimination. There could be other problems even if it’s consistent, I’m not denying that, but I think lack of consistency of treatment (linguistic or otherwise) is a key issue. I believe in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity to a degree, that language shapes/influences how we view the world & informs a lot of actions & behaviors in society. So linguistic discrimination is a real thing that can lead to or perpetuate more overt (physical/social) forms of discrimination. For the same reason, it should be consistent between genders (and as a side note, I don’t view male and female to be strictly biological terms to refer to biological sex, but rather that they can be used for gender identity too, as in MtF / FtM [male to female or female to male], which other sociology institutions seem to agree with as well, in case you thought I was being a “sex absolutist” or transphobic).
The case of using “male and female” for rats in an experiment is interesting because to me it represents a double standard where we are okay with using those more kind of basic fundamental terms for non-human animals, even if we’re not okay with using them for humans (and it’s not like we have terms like men and women for other animals, so it’s somewhat understandable in working within the language). But it also shows that if we only reserve those terms for other animals, it can uphold harmful differential treatment of them (such as conducting experiments/testing on them that they can’t consent to–and wouldn’t since they’re typically cruel in ways we would never do to humans–which could be seen as exploitation/taking advantage of sentient beings), as tied to a belief that humans are superior and are not animals, which is used to rationalize these actions & arguably discrimination (speciesism) of another kind. That’s partly why I question if it’s really valid for us to be opposed to using terms like male and female for humans, or if it reveals something deeper about how we think of ourselves in relation to other animals- as well as just curiosity about if there is really a problem there, and what/why that might be.
If I’ve read your comment correctly I think we actually agree on all points, but my hurriedly written comment didn’t communicate two of them as clearly as I would’ve liked.
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We concur that consistency of terms matters, words are the skeletons of thought-processes and therefore biases, etc.
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I realise my emphasising the phrase “biological descriptors” was a bit misleading and strictly speaking actually wrong, but in my partial defence I was trying to avoid more scientific words when not necessary (not wanting to drift into pretentiousness). In light of your observation about biology vs gender identity (which I agree with), probably my point would be more correct if I’d used a phrase like “reductionist differentiation descriptors”. Even if accurate that sounds a little pretentious so I’d love any domain-expert to chime in with a more accurate-yet-concise phrase.
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I used the rat example purely as an example of a research context divorced from social/political connotations, not as a human-animal vs non-human-animal differentiator (not implying any double-standard there), hence why I followed it with the example of how paramedics also use it. My point could equally have used a “10 humans…” example.
Also, pondering again your comment which spawned this slightly lengthy subthread, namely:
If we say “males and females” and use the equivalent terms for both, is there a problem with this? Because it’s not treating them differently so I don’t really understand
I am not a linguistics expert so I’m probably not using exactly the right terminology here, but I think the bit that matters is using:
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adjectives as reductionist/caricaturing pseudo-nouns
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when any such words are used merely as labels vs as signifiers for emphasis
Namely:
A. Calling someone a “human” or “person” is using a less common noun as ambiguous label
B. Calling someone a “woman” or “girl” or “man” or “boy” is using a common noun as general label
C. Calling someone a “female human” or “male human” or “female person” or “male person” is using an uncommon adjective-noun combination as explicit signifier
D. Calling someone a “female” or “male” is using a usually unwelcome adjective-as-pseudo-noun as reductionist signifier
In this context “reductionist signifier” means “reducing the value, worth, and significance of a person to only that defined by a single abused adjective”. So a line in a book which says “The bar full of people fell silent when a female entered the room” is implying that the “people” (probably primarily/entirely male, by inference) are “whole people” (with hopes, dreams, struggles, character arcs), while the “female” is as far as the writer cares merely a one-dimensional representation of a (different) gender, and not “a whole person, who happens to be female”. I remember reading long ago (but can’t remember attribution): “Never trust an author who shows you they don’t care about their characters”. I think the application of that can be extended from authors to people in general, based on how they speak.
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Honestly, ask a few woman how they feel about the usage and go by what they say. A bunch of men/boys discussing this have no skin in that game.
In their defense, when talking about entertainment media, especially the industries at large, people usually say “male audience” and “female audience.” Also “male characters” and “female characters.” They’re just common terms in this context.
That’s still a bit different than saying “males” or “females.” Using those words as nouns makes it feel like a nature documentary narration.
Well humans are animals, maybe we should question why it makes some of us feel uncomfortable to be referred to in the same way we would refer to other animals. It could be ingrained biases of human supremacy/anthropocentrism/speciesism that we use to justify differential treatment of nonhumans that we wouldn’t want done to ourselves 🤔 just a thought
I hear what you’re saying and I’m not saying you were wrong in your usage. The issue I think most women (including me) have is when men refer to us as “females” while not referring to themselves as “males” is that it makes us feel like they view us as not fully human, or like a lesser animal. Problematic people are often trying to feel superior to others, whether via race, class, religion, age, etc etc, and certainly speciesism (is that a word? Autocorrect thinks so) can play a role.
Yeah but he’s using it in a context that frequently says “male” and “female.” Honestly I didn’t even notice until folks complained.
It’s not the same as “you know how females are.”
I guess my reply was coming from women typically find being called females odd, often by “incels,” so I thought males had the same tone. I didn’t mean weird in a rude way! You have a good point.
I’d argue the difference is that when people say “females”, it’s usually in a vague sexual context- and that term includes girls and teenage women
so much was comics at the start I was wondering if it was more a comics thing. I know I don’t like when they change the characters in most cases (green lanterns being a job makes it easy to change it up). But then it went into other genres. is this really a widespread complaint. I have just not been watching much modern stuff really so maybe Im missing the drama.
Most of those superhero teams were originally created by comic book companies staffed almost entirely by men. The heroes created are therefore how they visualize heroes being, which mostly takes inspiration from their own experiences, and therefore creates mostly men.
I don’t really talk to anybody
I can’t speak for anyone else. But for me personally. I don’t mind if they have a female or male lead. What I care about is if the story and characters are believable. Many times it’s like they just said well here we are going to have a female lead just because. Yet when you look at the story and at the character it doesn’t make sense.
Ex :
A strong female lead who is supposed to be commanding people and yet when she gives commands it just comes across as bitchy not assertive. And when you look at the story the character wouldn’t have the training to be able to know even what to do.
It’s like the director and writers just had to put a female on the screen.
The above example is just an example not meant to point at a specific movie or show.
A few of movies where they did it right.
The women in the movie Red. That was excellent writing and acting. The original Alien movie was awesome. Oh yeah and Mr and Mrs Smith kicked ass Angelina was awesome in that movie
To many current movies just feel like a board room full of people with an agenda of let’s make a movie with a female lead without asking if the scenario makes sense.
This is just my opinion as I can’t speak for others.
A strong female lead
Women are strong in a different way to men and writers just gender swapping a male character is always fucking obnoxious.
A lot of writers apparently have no idea how to write interesting female characters. Some of the pushback from viewers / readers to increasing the number of female characters isn’t about the characters being female, it’s about them being bad characters. Boring, annoying, quippy, etc.
Nobody wants to admit that their movie flopped because it wasn’t very good, so they blame sexism. Or piracy, that one’s always popular.
it just comes across as bitchy and not assertive
The problem is men get way more leeway than women in this regard. Their voice, their demeanor, the way they dress, everything must perfectly match whatever the dude is expecting or “it’s not believable.“ Male characters are rarely as scrutinized.
as bitchy not assertive
Too often, a behavior is considered bossy or bitchy in a woman, but would be considered assertive or commanding in a man.
A woman crying is emotional and can’t be trusted to ‘do what needs to be done’, a man punching holes in walls is just frustrated and can be relied upon when the going gets tough.
…or at least that’s what our rather misogynistic culture likes to tell us.
I think this guy says it well.
My favorite example of this is when Scrubs added Dr. Grace Miller, she was literally written to be Dr. Cox, if he was a woman.
And people despised her.
Too often, I would agree with you yes. But it’s also in the context of how they’re crying and the way that they are crying. There’s a type of crying where for example, a commander is leading troops across the battlefield, watched longtime friends get blown apart and the commander sits down and just quietly cries after the battle. Whether the commander is male or female isn’t going to matter. Most people would say OK that’s reasonable level of emotion for the commander.
That little context, there is what too many directors and producers don’t understand. The emotion has to fit the character and has to fit the scene In order for it to be believable…
As far as the whole bossy and bitchy versus assertive comparing men to women. Again, I can’t speak for what other people think and say
can only speak for my personal point of view. Where I have a real problem with it is when actors and actresses aren’t taught appropriately to be assertive without being bitchy. Men generally are able to pick up on it easier. Women sometimes they don’t pick up on it and they’ve gotta have voice Training. Now that is not saying all women are that way so I don’t want somebody coming back and saying hey this guy just said all women arethis way. Well no I didn’t. But many times women don’t have the role models needed in their life to understand how to be assertive. Well, how do you act assertive on a movie screen if nobody’s ever taught you how to be assertive?
It would be no different than if somebody asked me to lead troops and combat well I don’t know how to do that. I wouldn’t knowhow to be assertive in that manner so I doubt I’d do it very well. Or for example, if somebody said hey, go repair that engine well if nobody’s ever showing me how to do it I don’t think I’d be able todo it. Given ones a technical skill and one’s a skill of how to project your voice, but if you’ve never had somebody show you howto do it or teach you how to do it and you’ve never had a role model in that manner. You might have a hard time it.
I think that’s it. I was taught how to project my voice, how to use an authoritative tone and it has helped me get leadership roles. It’s a skill, and it’s a skill that any leader ought to have, in a film, at least.
Both men and women can do it, but you need to learn and I haven’t seen nearly as many girls trying to learn it as boys
Because the majority of dudes complaining are incel man babies who need to feel like they are the focus of society. If its not exactly how they like it its not right. Its time we start shouting down on them loudly.
And if you dare question their masculinity by suggesting a woman might be able to do something other than be eye candy then they’ll… well I don’t know what they’ll do. Probably just complain about it on social media.
They become president and burn the country down
I found they usually huff until nearly shitting themselves before schoffing once more.
Sometimes, they’ll start a podcast or a YouTube channel. Those ones are the worst.
I don’t know if it’s because i’m not a native speaker, but i consider people who use “male” and especially “female” instead of “men” or “women” very very weird at best.
Context matters. “Male/female” is objectifying and can be used for “objects” like jobs. “Men/women” is more personal and should be used for people. The poster is using almost exclusively “male/female” even where “men/women” should be used, which leads to some clunkiness.
I mean, it’s just shorter than saying “women and girls” and “men and boys” if all female and male persons are the subject, not just adults
As a native speaker yeah though depending on where I am I may assume a non native speaker because it’s an irregular adjective-noun pairing and I know that’s the sort of thing that trips people up
It’s what you know, i lived more years with my gran than i didn’t and before she slipped into the madness of Alzheimer’s and i got to watch her die a little bit everyday, she still used females when speaking about women as a group.
Seemed a little old fashioned to me because she was old (born 1934) but its hard to see that term used as something particularly weird, just seems antiquated to me.
But that being said people are really struggling to find terms what won’t offend people or be inaccurate, its bloody impossible but there are plenty o people who are just trying to make better word choices, even if they are failing and mixing in with the weirdos
A couple of month ago I was volunteering in my youth centre. We always have the radio on. On air was an interview of a female author writing about a woman and her struggles as a mom and wife, falling for another man. The male interviewer had the audacity to ask if there are any themes in the book which could interest him as a male reader (imagine a very condescending tone).
Reducing “female” themes to lesser themes is so annoying, hurtful and stupid.
I’m not sure the interpretation has to be that “female themes” are “lesser”. People will generally and naturally relate more to themes that strongly correlate with personal, lived experience. It is not strange that a man would relate less to motherhood as a theme. Similarly, a woman might naturally relate less to fiction on father-son relationships. A city dweller might relate less to stories about life in the countryside. And so on. It is useful and instructive to get out of one’s own skin and mind now and then. It helps build empathy and works of fiction can be very helpful in that regard. But that does not change the fact that themes hit much harder when you can relate from personal experience.
As a man, strongly female themes and lead female characters are a-ok and can be touching even, but some male themes hit me much harder because I know what that feels like in my own skin so to say.
I get you and sure some themes hit harder than others. I myself no kids etc thought pet sematary was an ok book and I have read many comments saying it hits harder being a parent/father.
But there is a difference between: will we get the male perspective and I am not interested in the plot of a female one. Therefore devaluing it.
In a radio show introducing an entertainment to your audience, giving a platform to an author and then being dismissive feels so stupid.
I am especially enjoyed since it was on air in the youth centre. Boys and man constantly use girl and woman and anything related to it as insult. (And obviously gay, which is my personal journey to remind everyone that it is not an insult.) Just selecting a female team in FIFA was nearly too much to ask.
Yeah well I wasn’t there, so just going by your post and pitched in to say that it’s a valid question in general: how is this book relevant for me? If asked in good faith, the author I suppose can see it as an opportunity to explain for example why that woman’s story can be interesting to a male audience. Maybe even school the interviewer if so inclined.
I just feel like we should sometimes check our feminist impulses and recognize that some questions are valid, even when we may suspect that they come from a bad place.
I complain about popularity of fantasy romance vis a vis non-fantasy romance, and that now most published (or advertised) fantasy books are fantasy romance.
That genre is typically written for women, with female lead and is heavy in certain tropes.
That genre isn’t for me.
Am I a person that you’re ranting about OP? If not, could you point me to an article or opinion piece that you’re talking about, so I can read it and come back here?
I don’t think you are. The intrusion of “romantasy” is a serious issue with book publishing because they’re chasing what makes the most profits, and right now that’s the trend. No matter that romantasy is not proper fantasy…
I like the ringantasy over romantasy any day. Sometimes I also read sword-and-sandalsantasy.
+Old man grumbles over the youths word usage+
Hey, I’m just the messenger – blame the publishers. They’ve gotten sloppy, too, have you noticed? I’ve seen major grammatical/continuity errors and typesetting issues, even if the book is from the Big Five – even Tor. It’s disappointing, the ‘enshittification’ is happening before my eyes in real time.
I know, I’ve even heard of pages missing from paperbacks published by reputable print houses here in sweden
It’s making me get into book collecting and finding older/out-of-print editions, so at least that is a silver lining.
Is a nice site if you want to expand into Nordic/Swedish books in your collection
Thanks! A great one is also BookFinder - there are a few versions of it, I know .com and .de and I’m sure there are others.
