Fictional Female Follies – by Cedar Sanderson

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt
*Ladies, gentlemen, undead felines, molluscs — give my friend Cedar Sanderson a warm ATH welcome.  I have an ear infection (I SWEAR I don’t get sick on purpose) and Cedar very nicely saved me from having to write a post today! Also, her new book Pixie Noir just came out and you might want to give it a try*
When you hear that a book has a strong female character, how does that make you feel? Be honest… remember, this is for posterity.
And that primal groan of mingled pain and horror is about what I expected to hear. As my First Reader said when I asked him, “oh, another book where men are crap.” Yet my gracious hostess has succeeded beautifully with Athena, in giving us a very strong woman who might make you males flinch, but you enjoy reading about her. What makes her different?
There’s a metaphor for a relationship, about being in harness, and the modern reaction to that is horror from feminists. “You men want to bind women up in chains and leather and, and, stuff!” While they have clue zero about that it really means. This is how two pulling together can do more work than one alone. When I started writing Pixie Noir I knew that Bella and Lom, the two main characters, were going to be attracted to one another. It’s really obvious from the very first lines. What I also knew was that he was going to be physically stronger than she was, more knowledgeable about magic, and there was an obvious inequity from the beginning.
I’ve no objections to strong females, mind you. I am one, at least if you count stubborn. But do I need help with getting things down from shelves? Yes, but that’s not the point. I also need, as does Bella, a partner in life. Lom might insist from the get-go that he doesn’t need a partner, he doesn’t need help, and he sure as heck doesn’t need a fairy princess cluttering up his life with romance, but by the time he gets to know the woman who can shoot straight, throw spells further than anyone in the kingdom, and who is utterly fearless in battle, he’s come to appreciate her, and want her.

 But who buys books just because they have a strong female lead? No one I know, and when I asked a small group of female authors, the immediate, visceral response was, well, unprintable. The trend to write women as improbably physically strong, with the morals of a bunny in heat, and the brains of a gnat makes most of us who are actually strong women froth at the mouth. It was pointed out to me that most people consider “that twit from Pirates of the Caribbean” a strong woman, and at that I blinked and stopped.

 Athena in Darkship Thieves is so strong she needs Kit as a governor. Bella in my story needs sort of the same thing. Not governor as a ruler, but someone who gives them a check on their respective temper and magical power. Otherwise they would run out of control, burning out and doing great damage they would regret too late. Sometimes having someone you can trust utterly is a very good thing, and in modern books, that person is never a male. Which is a damage to our society that is incalculable. If we fear and hate the other sex, we lose that which can make us stronger, the ability to pull together in harness. Because that’s what’s missing with the feminist reaction, knowing that both are wrapped up in it together.

 My Evil Muse (who inhabits the same body as my First Reader) keeps coming by and dropping ideas in my ear. The Left tends to want only the women in books to do anything good, because all men are brutes only good for sex and muscles. Men are to be feared because all they want is sex, and sure, that’s fun, but only when I want it and never with any commitments attached and oh, by the way, you males aren’t even allowed to look at me, or I’ll scream… the breathless feminist proclaims. Just look at the nonsensical harassment claims that proliferate on the internet. How strong is that, really? The last time I was being hit on, and couldn’t just laugh it off, I dealt with it by making it very clear I was with someone else, and the man backed off. It wasn’t that I needed a protector. It was that I had back-up. But he is much more than that. Confidante, friend, warmth in the night when I have bad dreams… And I give much the same to him in return. It’s a partnership, and that’s what I was trying to capture in Pixie Noir. That a strong woman and a strong man might need one another to succeed.

Snippets of Pixie Noir, here.

142 thoughts on “Fictional Female Follies – by Cedar Sanderson”

  2. Partnerships are always stronger. Women are, sort of, better off in that they don’t have a “Macho Image” to live down to. The Female in Pixie Noir is the kind of woman I’d like to find. Sigh. Unfortunately, very few, and even farther between. You caught very well, the struggle of a “man” who genuinely loves someone, and is trying to do what’s right for her, not what he wants for himself.

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    1. Women may not have a ‘macho image’ but there is certainly a lot of pressure on them in other directions. I know I’m not the only stay-at-home mother who got scornful looks and questions when she revealed her role in life. Modern society has no use for a woman who isn’t on the career ladder.

      By portraying women in fiction as uber-men, authors betray their intent to push women into the role of not needing or wanting men, leaving women like me (and this is what I wrote Bella as wanting, too) who work best with a partner, out in the cold. I want to write independent women, but as I wrote over on Mad Genius Club today, life isn’t a solo effort. We need others, or life becomes very solitary and bitter.

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        1. For people who were, presumably, old enough to know better, where do they *think* babies will come from? If no one has children, we’d be extinct in no time. Oh, wait, they want that…

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            1. “Having babies is the work of stupid women”

              Someone actually said this, really? I mean, I understand that it is biologically possible to breed and produce offspring, but actually raising a child is not… simple, if you are doing it right. *shakes head*

              Sorry, these things still surprise me sometimes. Maybe I should get out more.

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              1. Pretty much what I have been told myself. I used to run a business out of the home, while dealing with three (then four) toddlers and babies. One day in the store an old friend said “Oh, you don’t have a real job?” and I went nuclear…

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                1. I can see why, lass. *shakes head* Being the protector of culture isn’t important, raising the next generation to be virtuous, curious, and brave isn’t a real job? Just because it’s unpaid? Boggles the mind, it does.

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              2. Then you have the woman who went the other way and had children, then a few years ago, wrote an article on how to raise your child and be a great parent. I think she had a total of FIVE other women doing most of the duties of parenting in various settings.

                Unfortunately, I can’t remember enough of the title to search for it successfully, or I would post the link just to show I wasn’t joking.

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                  1. No, that’s that woman who insists that her children be perfect. I’m talking about a woman who essentially wrote about what a great mom she was (by writing it as an advice column), but had to have several helpers in the process. Oh, I think it was about being a great mom while having a career, now that I remember a little more.

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            2. Then they wonder why degrees for women hit a peak in the 1910s and then fell sharply. It’s because those women didn’t have children, either.

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          2. It’s amazing how many SF writers, in their extrapolations, reveal that they do not believe in evolution. They never compare differential fertility to guess what the future is like.

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  3. Agree; partnership between a man and woman – both of whom have strength and character – is very appealing to write and to have in real life. These days it’s an act of subversion, almost.

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  4. Just picked up my copy of Pixie Noir. I’m not allowed to start it until I finish NaNo. I’m at 47,800 words for the month and have to reach 50,000 by the end of the day. If only the brain freeze hadn’t hit a couple of thousand words too early.

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    1. I’ll give you a little rah-rah here! I did NaNo for Vulcan’s Kittens, and won. It was the first time I’d written anything longer than a short story. Pixie is quite a bit longer, but it took me six months to finish it. You can do it, don’t worry about plot, editing, or anything except writing sentences (just writing words would be silly. They need connectors). Let us know when you make it!

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      2. I did it! Crossed the finish line with hours to spare. I’ve only done the full 50,000 words in one month once before, but it always amazes me how much one can do in November. It’s a very magical month.

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          2. Btw, it does not have to be daunting, although it certainly is in the middle and the last day. The first year I did it I only got to 6000 for the whole month. You get better at it. This year, the first day was positively exhilarating.

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              1. I see it’s a $10 app now, but it used to be a website called Write or Die. You’d plug in your word count goal, set the gizmo for whatever your nerves could handle and start writing. The nicest setting was a sound, IIRC, telling you to get back to work. The next worst was that if you stopped for more than x seconds it would start deleting your words. Worst was the electroshock, which wasn’t real and wasn’t necessary. Watching your words vanish was terrifying enough.
                Writing this way does not produce beautiful prose. It does speed you up. Then you only have to threaten yourself with it.

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              2. The thing that made me have to pile up so much is that I let a few days go by without hitting the four-digits — particularly on weekends. The hare is unwise but feasible; the turtle is impossible. You need to be something like a badger who can amble along a reasonable clip the month long.

                Unless you want to be like the guy Chris Baty describes in No Plot? No Problem! who was in the very first, eked out 12,000 words, and quit. Except that with three days to go, he had a brilliant idea and threw himself at the typewriter, blowing off everything else and managing to be one of the first winners.

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          1. Yes. Even better is, despite not really knowing what would come next, once I hit my target my brain started working again.
            Even if you don’t make it, NaNo gives you a huge amount of ideas, not to mention words.

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      1. I read an early snippet, realized I really liked it, and decided to wait for the whole thing. I’m kind of chomping at the bit here, but first, I Must Finish NaNo.

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      1. You can do it! If you know what happens next in your story you can totally do it.
        I no longer knew what was happening next, and just did set up for things I will have to figure out later. Also, there may be overly long descriptions of the scenery that will have to be drastically reduced.

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        1. Outlined it. I will reflect on my outline tomorrow in my group, but I do know, more or less.

          47,200 thus far.

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            2. Mind, the outline’s about a fifth done, so I may be perpetrating a trilogy here, but I can slog onward from a good start.

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          2. Hurray! (general capering about the breakfast table on your behalf). I can’t believe it. I was very nervous when you were at 47,000 late afternoon. I said I had faith, but 5,000 words in one day? Wow. I am in awe.

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  5. Yeah, I’ve pretty much stopped reading new urban fantasy, because of the common delusion that a “strong woman” must be able to physically win every fight, and have all the men lusting after her while proclaiming them all pigs (and yet introducing them to the reader with descriptions of their ‘hotness’), and be verbally abusive to demonstrate her “independence”.

    One or two of those can be fun, but as a genre expectation, it quickly grows dull and unpalatable – just as pixie sticks and cotton candy can be very fun to eat, but are absolutely unsuitable for actual food.

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    1. Pixie is written from Lom’s point of view on purpose. There aren’t enough male voices in Contemporary Fantasy, and I like guys. Unabashedly, and with great glee, I went about writing a man I could respect, and showing his deepening feelings for a woman he respected was a writing challenge I just had to take on.

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      1. On my kindle now; I look forward to reading it. :-)

        I was thinking about why I like Simon R Green’s tales from the nightside, but find his deathstalker books utterly meh, and I think that’s the key – the former have a man I can respect, and the latter don’t.

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          1. True, true. It’s hard to sympathize with characters and care what happens to ’em if you don’t respect them.

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    2. The physical strength thing is not only stupid but dangerous.

      From a scenario where a 17-year-old took an overdose after her violent boyfriend went to jail for burglary and the shrink tries to reason with her:

      I warned her as graphically as I could that she was already well down the slippery slope leading to poverty and misery—that, as I knew from the experience of untold patients, she would soon have a succession of possessive, exploitative, and violent boyfriends, unless she changed her life. I told her that in the past few days, I had seen two women patients who had had their heads rammed down the lavatory, one who had had her head smashed through a window and her throat cut on the shards of glass, one who had had her arm, jaw, and skull broken, and one who had been suspended by her ankles from a tenth-floor window to the tune of, “Die, you bitch!”

      “I can look after myself,” said my 17-year-old.

      “But men are stronger than women,” I said. “When it comes to violence, they are at an advantage.”

      “That’s a sexist thing to say,” she replied.

      A girl who had absorbed nothing at school had nevertheless absorbed the shibboleths of political correctness in general and of feminism in particular.

      “But it’s a plain, straightforward, and inescapable fact,” I said.

      “It’s sexist,” she reiterated firmly.

      Full thing here:
      http://www.city-journal.org/html/9_1_oh_to_be.html

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    3. I’m reading an urban fantasy from a guy’s POV, but I can’t yet report on whether it’s worth reading.

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  6. Yes! Rada’s well, Rada, but she also has Himself, her troopers, noble allies, Zabet (the smart one), and eventually Rahoul Khan and Joschka von Hohen-Drachenburg to keep her in check and aimed in the proper direction. Although getting her to admit that she needs that check is harder than getting Imelda Marcos past a shoe store. :)

    One of the challenges on the Colplatschki books was sorting out the MC’s relationship with the men and women around her. I’ll be the first to admit that the proposal in the third book caught me as off guard as it caught her, but it also makes sense. She needs him and knows it, and he needs her. He moderates her drive, and she gives him confidence to act on what he’s learned. On the other paw, they also have a real problem with keeping their personal and professional lives straight, but what’s a story without a little tension?

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    1. I realy need to read yours… Sounds like my kind of character. I love to read about this, realistic people and their stories. Well, anyway, I’m addicted to character… LOL Science fiction and fantasy don’t always count as realistic settings, but the beings in the stories can still be very human.

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    2. “what’s a story without a little tension?” Spaghetti? Not even good pasta, but cheap, Ramen noodle crap without sauce or salt, dried out from the day before, eaten cold on a monday morning before going job hunting.

      In other words, unpalatable!

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      1. Ewww. At least get some frozen mixed veggies – they’re cheap at a buck a bag – and a head of cabbage, and toss a handful of mixed veggies in after the ramen has mostly cooked and is cooling down. Then shave off some cabbage, and add the slivers that are long and thin like bean sprouts (but much less expensive!) into the cooked noodles, for crunch, texture, flavor, and nutrition.

        Just because ramen is subsistence food doesn’t mean it has to be starvation food!

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        1. I’m with you on that! When I’ve used ramen in my life, it has been with the frozen veggies (I’m partial to broccoli or brussel sprouts) and whatever leftovers in the frig look like they’ll work. I rarely eat it now, but it’s comfort food in a weird, weird way.

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          1. You know, with a little crushed-up peanuts and some chopped-up scrambled eggs, especially when you add a little sriracha sauce, ramen with a little veggies and sliced fresh cabbage makes a fine pad thai.

            Yes, when it’s been such a staple, it’s becomes comfort food – like craft mac n’ cheesy, it tastes more of nostalgia than cheap carbs.

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            1. You know it might be heretical, but I like Ramen. About the only thing I’ll put in it however is a poached egg, those frozen veggies, finger steaks, etc. I’ll have on the side. Boil some water, crush up the block of ramen, put in a bowl, dump the seasoning packet over it, dump boiling water over it, stir, and wala! in a minute or so you have ramen ready to eat. Adding the other stuff just covers up the salty goodness of ramen, I’d rather save that other stuff as a palate cleanser.

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        3. My mom had her sister and her six kids drop in on her an hour before lunch, with nothing in the house to feed them. I found a cold chicken breast from the night before, some ramen, and a package of frozen mixed vegetables. Fixed the ramen, added the frozen vegetables, slivered the chicken breast and added it, and fed nine people a hot, nourishing lunch, all within 30 minutes prep time. Learned that from the foster-parent group we belonged to in Denver. Yeah, I’m a man and I cook. Even enjoy it now and then. 8^)

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          2. I’ve been told “call for pizza, there’s nothing in the house and 12 to feed” I always take that as a personal challenge.

            I -have- failed. I have been in houses and apartments where the refrigerator contained a bottle of water, half a bottle of wine, and a box of candles in the freezer, with the cupboards equally bare. I can not understand how these people live.

            I have, of course, had people refuse to eat what I’ve come up with, but seldom. My favorite memory involves a fried rice that started with a nearly freezer burned pork chop and a can of pineapple rings.

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            1. When I was at UNO, I spoke to someone who was taking courses at UNMC; he told me that every fall, they would get one or two freshmen coming in with scurvy, kwashiorkor, or other diseases.

              Because apparently the human body *does* require fresh fruits and/or vegetables every so often….

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  7. I was burned out from children as I was the oldest of nine (raised several of them and they still come to me for advice) so I didn’t have any. I know I went through a phase when I wondered why so many women expected to be coddled all their lives because they had children. (I have some sisters who have that feeling). So yea, raising children is a very hard job. I do admire a woman who can do that with grace.

    I do feel sorry for the children who are raised with women who are never there. (have it all feminist philosophy). Maybe they shouldn’t have children. Plus I did work in a School Age program (after school– we used to pick up the kids who had parents that were military). Anyway I learned then that children need quantity time with their parents. Quality time doesn’t cut it.

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  8. Actually I wanted to talk about strong women. I met several in the military and several weak women there as well. The difference was that the strong women would pick up the slack as much as they could with their training and their strength. The weak women were always looking for someone else to do their work– male or female.

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    1. It’s less about physical strength, which is what the feminists seem to get hung up on, than it is about the mental endurance and perseverance, which goes for both men and women.

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    2. “The weak … were always looking for someone else to do their work …”

      A statement which encapsulates much about the ills of modern society. Couple it with the concept that bullies are inherently weak — the truly strong don’t require the external validation of bending others to their will — and you begin to build an alternate understanding of “strong” females in contemporary culture.

      Feministic demands that all follow their model is an admission of insecurity expressed through bullying/social intimidation. It is probably not coincidence that as feminism reaches its cultural apogee the societal concern over bullying grows.

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      1. I’ve been bullied, for expressing such counterculture concepts as preservation of the innocence of children, and my role as a mother in charge of her children (which means sometimes taking away that which would harm them). My response has been to stand firm and keep saying it. Those who are concerned about it are guilty of it.

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    3. IMNSHO, strong women have both: the sense to distinguish the harmless teasing that is the bedrock of male bonding with actual signals that imply threat, and the ability to handle both with grace. Being a strong woman is more about judo–or aikido than brute force.

      The culture has these defining signals that are just… plain… WRONG. Not knowing that undercuts whatever strength of character she might have learned from positive male role models, friends or any other male figure you could name. The strongest women I know all have in common the trait of having a strong male presence in the family. It isn’t that they become boyish necessarily, but that they understand what men do and how, if not why.

      It is also about knowing when not to steamroll or undercutting those you don’t like– even when you’d like to. True strength does NOT make those decisions “because I feel like it.” There is a baffling tendency to make “unpredictable” into a feminist virtue, as if being arbitrary equals “interesting,” “complicated,” or worse, *feminine*.

      Also, crudity is not a virtue, nor even a starting point with male compatibility. As a woman who has traditionally had more non-sexual “guy pals” than female friends, I can say that having standards but selective hearing means that the guys respect you more, not less. The blurring of the line between the sexes, if pursued too far, leads to discomfort on both sides, regardless you hard you try to wallpaper it over with ideology. To turn around and blame this on the other party is an expression of disfunction not strength.

      There are *some* women who are strong– as physically strong as men. They also a small to tiny segment of the population, have a genetic disorder, are prone to specific health problems, and fairly predictable blind spots that do not fit the phlegminist mold. They are often judged by society as being unattractive, and built very unlike Barbie. Excessive and inconvenient hair growth being the least of these distinctive features. These ladies are NOT living the feminist dream, I assure you.

      I have always wanted to do a time travel novel where a third wave feminist meets a “fainting violet” Victorian housewife. The former is essentially bowled over by the latter’s strength of character. Granted, not all Victorian ladies were like the character in my head, but more of them had to be to survive than we moderns give them credit for. The trouble is, the Victorians already suffered from so many habits of the modern malaise, that she’d almost have to be frontier stock for it to be believeable.

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      1. Yes – I think of “strong women” as women who are comfortable in their skins and are not in competition with men. Not women who have the same physical strength as men. ;-)

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        1. I was simply explaining the phenomenon as debunking many of the fictional obsessions with those all too common “strong female characters”. You were in the right. I was actually agreeing with you. :)

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  11. I think that what many of the radical feminists don’t like about women in many stories is that they are written into supporting roles, rather than as the central protagonist.

    The problem I see is that that’s largely the way most (not all, of course) women work in stressful events. They will let the big, bulky male go first and absorb the heaviest of the punishment, while they keep him supplied, cover his back, tend his wounds afterward, etc. On the other hand, when the fighting is not going on, they will frequently be consulting on planning, helping to keep watch, as well as generally keeping track of all the details. How many of these pants-wetting children in adult bodies, even the ones who think they are tough as nails, could begin to fill that role? On second thought, maybe that’s the true reason they complain about it: deep down, maybe they know they aren’t truly as strong as those characters.

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    1. One of the most fascinating essays I’ve read on the ‘net was by a woman who is a natural subordinate, in the sense that she truly needs someone to give her directions and to make the major decisions. But she was writing about why people like her must learn to take care of themselves and especially learn basic self-defense, in order to be able to truly support their dominant partner (her husband in this case). I don’t entirely understand her mindset, but I admire her understanding and determination. I’d love to see well written characters like her and her husband, because they seem to have the puzzle worked out, in that area at least. (The blog has been taken down or I’d provide a link.)

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      1. Oh that would be me (not the blog, just the type). I am a strong woman AND best in a subordinate/helpmeet type of role. Fer instance, I am best in the role of reloader, not shooter. Fate has forced me to be the dominant partner in my marriage and I hate it. But did I say I am strong, so I do what needs doing. BTW, strong does NOT mean I never get knocked down … that happens every day, sometimes for months on end … but I always get back up, eventually … that’s what strong is about. It’s my contrariness, really, I won’t give the devil the satisfaction of keeping me down, at least until I’m dead and cold. So, subordinate doesn’t mean weak. And remember that aphorism about too many chiefs … or chefs … or whatnot …

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  12. Yeah, the whole notion that women are only strong if they can kick butt and take names is infuriating to me. Especially if they are doing it without firearms or magic.

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    1. Hah! Bella is using both firearms and magic… and even with the gun in her first fight she would have been done had not Lom come to the rescue. But the thing is, anyone can get in a pickle. Having back-up is just a good idea.

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  13. With Dolly, I’m trying to subvert a lot of that. Not as my main motive, but it’s on the list. I love it when a grievance feminazi says, “No woman would do that!” because every single trait I ascribe to Dolly, and every action she takes in those veins are those I have observed in women I have known — frequently have been intimate with.

    But I have to remind myself in plotting that she IS the hero(ine) and exists to play the lead part in her adventures, so I have to give a wide berth to the tempting alternative of a “Perils of Pauline” type. And, while Drummond has to be strong enough — man enough — to be worthy of Dolly’s love, he can’t rescue her all the time, or he might as well be the lead. So, in a lot of ways, she has to be stronger than he. Or… her flaws cripple her in different ways than his do and they two compliment each other in a lot of ways.

    M

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    2. Ah, the limits of the oft cited argument for literature, that it broadens the mind. The people who most need it reject the stuff that would do it as implausible.

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  14. I think we’ve all been taking this “strong female character” wrong. And it’s as wrong as the fainting damsel who needs rescuing is wrong.

    We just don’t give the girl a sword and chain the boy to a rock (unless you want to mock moderns). Feminists goofed when they tried to turn women into men.

    A good step in the right direction is what you (Cedar) describe: give the male and female leads complimentary skills. He (I presume) wields a big and heavy sword that requires upper body strength. She wields a wand that’s light, but it requires a deft touch and great skill. Together, their strengths cover one another and create synergy.

    Is making the dame a magic-warrior the best and highest use of her sex? Can she manifest strength in other modes than combat? In modes that are also inherently feminine?

    When I had cancer I fooled everyone into thinking I was courageous by simply maintaining a pleasant, positive attitude and kept on doing what I could while I looked & felt like death warmed over. That kind of strength is probably more feminine than masculine. I’ve known women who can keep it together in the face of a dozen competing distractions while men fall apart.

    I don’t think we disagree about anything of substance and look forward to reading your work.

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    1. Your description makes me think of Lee and Miller’s Moonhawk and Luke stories. Complementary strengths, both of them -very- strong, both of them -very- skilled, both of them able to do things the other can not even imagine how to do.

      Of course, Sharron and Steve do a lot of those kinds of couples; Shan and Priscilla, Val Con and Miri, Pat Rin and Natesa, Anthora and Ren Zel.

      Then, Eric Flint’s couples work that way. Mike Stearns and Rebbeca Abrabanel. Jeff Higgens and Gretchen Richter, James Nichols and
      Wait, never mind, Lee and Miller ended up being published by Baen because no one else would. I forgot. :-/

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  15. I purchased the kindle edition the first night, but was travelling for the holidays and am in the middle of a Ringo (aonther Aldenata which I want to finish first.) More time to read now that I’m home.

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  16. My wife and I complement each other, and always have. That’s one of the major reasons we’ve been married 47 years.

    One of the series I’m writing has a strong female lead. Cynthia was reared to be a débutante and a “trophy wife” — attractive, weak, dependent. She doesn’t like it and rebels. Thanks to circumstances and blind luck, she learns to be strong, and develops skills that would make most men drool with envy. She still retains her basic femininity, and in the end, finds a man to complement her and end what for her has been a lonely existence. I’m sure most feminists would HATE it!

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      1. The book is complete, and I’ve sold about 50 copies of it already. I can email you a copy if you’d like to read it. In fact, I’d greatly appreciate it. I haven’t gotten a lot of feedback on any of my books. My email is my name at gmail dot com.

        I don’t go to cons. Between my physical problems (can’t stand more than 5 minutes without pain) and hyperacusis (extremely sensitive hearing), it’s just too unpleasant.

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  17. Aaaaannnd, from the “we’re strong! We’re independent! We’ve got way too many First World Problems” I present to you the, ahem, students, of Mills College.
    http://cnsnews.com/news/article/students-all-girl-college-promote-gender-neutral-pronouns-ze-sie-e-ou-and-ve (I’d skip the comments, however. Some are rather vile. And I’d note that if the students are trying to be genderless, instead of ‘sie’ they should be using ‘das.’)

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    1. I saw this yesterday I think, and we had an *ahem* vigorous discussion about these students and their rampant grammar abuse. The thing is, I sat in a college comp & Lit class last week and listened to the professor suggest that she didn’t want to see she/he on papers, so perhaps they should alternate pronouns, so as not to give the male “he” too much precendence. I was hard put not to start beating my head on the desk. It would have hurt less.

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      1. This is one of those things were there isn’t a rule. Therefore I assert my right to decide to use “he or she” when necessary. Using too many pronouns risks ambiguity in any case. Something with so many “he or shes” that it becomes obnoxious should probably have fewer pronouns all around.

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    2. I wonder how many of them are students of history, and how many of that few are familiar with Sir Charles Napier (meaning the British General, not the actor)? The Beloochee were hardly a similar issue in degree, but his solution strikes me as the simplest. Also, in more local history, a careful reading of the Bill of Rights fails to contain even the barest hint of the Right Not To Be Offended these folks seem to be blindly reaching for.

      I’ve no problems addressing someone as they wish within reason. That’s only common courtesy, and I’d love to see more of it in the world. Not got any fundamental issues with the folks with an extra kink in their mental plumbing, either. But folks what want to change how *I* think, speak, and act ought to realize that people like me are just as free to try and convince *them* as well.

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      1. They might believe they have the right to not be offended, but they sure do retain the right to be offensive.

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    3. ” (I’d skip the comments, however. Some are rather vile. And I’d note that if the students are trying to be genderless, instead of ‘sie’ they should be using ‘das.’)”

      I don’t know, I found the argument over whether ones gender had anything to do with ones sex rather humorous. Although significantly lacking in logic.

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        2. I still remember the time we explained, online, to a non-native speaker that yes, “to sex” is an English verb, but it did not have the meaning he ascribed to it.

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          1. Oh, maybe not …. when I was sexing a litter of kittens once, when asked by my wife what I was doing, I answered: “Molesting kittens”.

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              1. The kitten we kept and named Maggie, was on the couch several months later cleaning itself. Up went a leg and showed something “she” wasn’t supposed to have.

                Hence my 80% accuracy rate in sexing five week old kittens …

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                    1. Before he donned costume Magneto’s name was, IIRC, Magnus.

                      Magneto was born Max Eisenhardt sometime in the late 1920s to a middle class German Jewish family whose father, Jakob Eisenhardt, was a highly decorated World War I veteran. Surviving discrimination and hardship during the Nazi rise to power, Kristallnacht, and the passing of the Nuremberg Laws, in 1939 Max and his family fled to Poland where they were captured during the German invasion of Poland and sent to the Warsaw Ghetto. Max and his family escaped the Ghetto, only to be betrayed and captured again. His mother, father, and sister were executed and buried in a mass grave, but Max survived, possibly due to the manifestation of his powers. Escaping from the mass grave, he was ultimately captured yet again and sent to Auschwitz, where he eventually became a Sonderkommando. While at Auschwitz, Eisenhardt reunited with a Roma girl named Magda, with whom he had fallen in love when he was younger, and with whom he escaped the prison camp during the October 7th 1944 revolt. Following the war, he and Magda moved to the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, and Max adopted the name “Magnus”.
                      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto_(comics)#Early_life

                      I would offer Ars Magna as readily abbreviable to Maggie and containing an excreble pun:
                      The Ars Magna (Latin: “The Great Art”) is an important book on Algebra …

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                  2. We named a cat Clytemnestra in order to shorten her name to Clyde. She was unquestionably a female and equally undoubtedly a Clyde. An individual’s name and sex do not always coincide.

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  18. As I was just pointing out over at Mr. Wright’s esteemed blog, the “mulier fortis” (“strong woman” or “valiant woman”) is the woman of Proverbs 30, who is trustworthy, beloved by her husband and children, kind to her household employees, generous to the poor, and busy running her household as a multi-national business.

    Of course, the Bible does include some women who do butt-kicking and revenge, but mostly they’re a tad busy keeping Israel running.

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    1. Someone who knew I was writing this pointed me in his direction, and I have been enjoying that series very much. I shall have to meander over and say thank you in a more tangible form than just thinking about it.

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  19. “You men want to bind women up in chains and leather and, and, stuff!”

    Well, leather and stuff anyway. And not so much binding as form fitting.

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  21. Your book sounds like great fun and something I could get in to. I will have to add it to my to-buy list. I have KKR’s “Skirmishes” first in line; I was waiting to finish my novel for NaNoWriMo to “indulge.” :)

    The subject caught my eye here. I was once told I write “strong” women; they’re assertive leader-types who keep cool and strategize in a crisis, not hulking she-men. My (now completed) WIP is a science fantasy with three female protagonists; I wrote the women as a cheeky shout-out to Nancy Drew and her chums. It’s telegraphed with the name of the first protag. But I’ve been dismayed lately whenever I read articles about women and fantasy, especially from insiders. There seem to be strict rules about “strong women,” and mine don’t fit those rules. I violate other fashionable ideas in this story, too. Pre-indie revolution I might have stuck this story in a drawer. Post-indie I’m glad I can still put it out there. This thread is reassuring.

    I actually had the Proverbs 30 woman in mind as I wrote my story. My women run businesses; one is engaged for an arranged marriage (which she’s not resisting!), one is single and looking, one is widowed. Only one does hand-to-hand combat, but only while sneaking around with magical daggers, otherwise she avoids it wherever possible. If they have to kill someone, it’s usually as snipers, using bows or a rail gun they stole from mysterious enemies. Otherwise, they leave the fighting to the trained soldiers/spies, who are either sword-wielding men, or sorceresses. Or a salamander. They do wear leather “pants” in one instance, because they were under attack, and needed to shoot from the backs of flying gryphons. They’re classy women, and thought it was too indecent to sit astride in their chitons.

    I’m glad to know that I’m not alone in thinking that strong women don’t have to be brawny. Strong can mean upholding your honor and principles in the face of powerful reasons not to. It can mean sacrificing your heart’s desire for the sake of love and doing what’s right. It can mean moral courage as well as physical courage.

    Looking forward to reading your book! That cover is so cool.

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  22. The point a lot of critics miss about the “strong female” character is that if she were written realistically, she would no longer be what we consider to be truly human.

    Posit an average woman that can take on the average male in a fight, and you’ve just posited the inhuman, whether you like to admit it, or not.

    And, were she to be more than an aberration, unique in her strength, you’d have to posit a background culture of such draconian egalitarianism so as to be unrecognizable to us when we looked at the details. The very root values which the radical feminists have hijacked wouldn’t even be there, nor would the assumed privileges for the “weaker sex” still exist. We might recognize such a society, somewhat, and could even live there, but I seriously doubt that any of us would be comfortable doing it. I know I’m not particularly attracted to other men in a sexual way, and the women from such a society would likely share so many “male” traits and signals that I’d never find any of them particularly attractive. In order to survive and reproduce there, I’d probably need to have a rather thorough brainwashing applied.

    And, I say that not out of some misguided misogyny, but out of a clear recognition of what I find attractive. The average male in most current human cultures wants to feel needed, necessary, a provider. Take that away, and a lot of the attraction goes away. I’ve known women who were completely self-sufficient, and who operated completely independently, and while I was more than willing to have them as friends, there was zero sexual attraction, there.

    They were, in short, “just one of the guys”. The idea of partnering with one of them just didn’t occur, to either of us. They were too skilled in the “male” realm, themselves, and really needed “wives” as much as I did. Most of the men they wound up with were extremely feminine, and who were complementary to those women, rather than supplementary, if that makes any sense at all. It wasn’t a case of disrespecting them, or something else negative, it was just the lack of attraction. A couple of the women I’m thinking of were quite good looking, and attractive, and had decent personalities. For guys, that is… The behavioral cues I picked up from them never, ever signaled my hindbrain to tell me that I should be attracted.

    To a degree, I think that men want women who are weaker in some respects, because that’s a personal situation where males feel they can contribute, and be “needed”. Nobody is particularly attracted to a relationship where they are a superfluity, and to some respects, even a truly equal partnership isn’t desirable. Successful mating relationships seem to demand that the partners are complementary in strengths, rather than competitive.

    In short, I don’t think that the folks advocating for true and full equality in characters or reality have really thought through all the implications. We’re better off, the way we’re made, to have complementary roles and the sexual dimorphism we’ve evolved with. Something else? It might be admirable, but it won’t be what we consider truly human…

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  23. I watch anime — I often find myself wondering “Where in hell are all these weak women the left are braying about eliminating?”.

    Recommended viewing on this score: _R.O.D. The TV_ (yes, that’s the title). The makers didn’t even get out of Episode 1 before making abundantly clear “yes, the Three Sisters are peculiar — but *do not* cross them”….

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