Sarah Rees Brennan has an excellent, lengthy post about why female characters in fiction so often fell short in ye olden days, why they still often do, and some strategies to consider when writing them. Plus, it’s funny:
PETER THE MAGNIFICENT: My brother Edmund is no longer a friend to Narnia.
ASLAN: Oh that’s a pity.
PETER THE MAGNIFICENT: All he thinks about parading around in nylons and lipstick!
ASLAN: … Say what?
PETER THE MAGNIFICENT: DON’T ASK ME TO TALK ABOUT IT!Male villains tend to be much less sexualised. It was never suggested, for instance, that Sauron or Saruman was sexy. (If you just got an image of a big flamey eye doing a booty dance, I am truly sorry.)
We won’t discuss the movie visual of Sauron in this context, among, y’know, polite company.
That was an excellent post, thanks for linking it. Inspirational.
Alas, some of us have had to try visualizing Sauron’s booty for years.
Thanks for the link, glad you liked. 🙂 I remembered fizzing at you about the MAGIC BITES series right after I read it as I was recommending Kate as a good kickass heroine!
I SO love that series… I haven’t found any that I like as well yet (though I do really love Marjorie Liu’s Iron Hunt, but it’s too different to directly compare).
This would be even funnier if Eddie Izzard was an Edmund.
I am now picturing the movie visual version of Sauron “parading around in nylons and lipstick!”
Snerk.