the holes in the theories

Laura, 21, film enthusiast and penis trees blogger.

"it just does not seem like your kind of thing at all. there's no queerness or romance or class issues or history or religious junk!!!!" -Sara

"YOU ARE MY LITERARY SIREN. sitting on the rocks warbling “you should read this booooooooooooook it’s really queeeEEeEeEEeEEEEerrrr” melodically" -Dorian

"ur the hole to my theory" -Miranda

"if the only thing we have to gain in staying is each other,
my god that’s plenty
my god that’s enough
my god that is so, so much for the light to give" - Andrea Gibson

In other words, that you want women protagonists, but that you also want to tell a story in which the main roles should be filled by men (whether it’s a war story, a mystery, an epic or something else on the same lines). Because, let’s face it, if you want your characters to go out, battle monsters, solve murders, get into fights, sue for peace–then you want them to take on a role traditionally played by men. There’s nothing wrong with that (and I’m all in favour of equality, though I’m a little worried that “equality” means that women take on men’s roles but that the reverse is by no means true–talk about cheapening the work of women…)

…

In short, you have to be aware of one important thing: that a woman’s life and power in medieval settings were not at all like that of a man–but that this doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. And I think you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you ignored the other storytelling possibilities that exist, or dismissed them all as being somehow inferior.

Aliette de Bodard, “Female protagonists in historical fantasy”