In which I rant about women in David Eddings, and other things.

[foxe]

... without providing any sort of actual textual analysis or supporting evidence, hence why it is a rant rather than anything useful :)

This started off as a reply to conradin's post (locked so I won't link to it here) about F/SF series with strong women protagonists. conradin mentioned two that came to mind, being the Empire series and Polgara in David Eddings

Comments

[bar_barra]

My, that's a can of worms! Robert Heinlein didn't actually understand people at all. His women are a projection of what he wanted women to be, and you're right: it's a pretty nice wish-fulfilment thing actually. But nothing like reality. He was clearly a very nice man with not the slightest vestige of natural talent who simply worked hard at it. Everyone notices his women: as you say, their nipples are always erect. BUT can you name a single convincing male character in his books either????

I can't speak about Eddings cos I never got past page 1 of any of his books.

[foxe]

can you name a single convincing male character in his books either?

Haha, very true! :D I did think to myself as I was writing this that hmmm, his male characters are all fairly stereotyped as well.

Still, like I said, it'd be a fun box to live in for a bit... :)

[tigerdenbodu]

The only convincing character in a Heinlein book is himself. He's easy to spot in many of his books. Although his character tends to pontificate a lot.

[conradin]

Hehehe, I should possibly have mentioned, it was "women as protagonist" more than a "strong woman" that made me mention Polgara. Can't remember many women protagonists at all.

Ooo! Actually, I think the recent William Gibson book I read did pretty well, Spook country!

Erm...now I should read the rest of your post...

[pezzae]

Was it Pattern Recognition? I read that and didn't think much of the female protagonist, but then I read Neuromancer and realised that I just don't really like any of his characters...

[conradin]

Hehehe, sorry, just VASTLY amused, because the RL discussion that prompted my post went from Eddings, to Eddings having really bad portrayals of women, to Heilein's strange portrayal of women. :)

[foxe]

Ha, really? :D obviously it's not just me who thinks of them as prominent examples, then.

In fact, from the Wiki article on Heinlein:
Gary Westfahl points out that "Heinlein is a problematic case for feminists; on the one hand, his works often feature strong female characters and vigorous statements that women are equal to or even superior to men; but these characters and statements often reflect hopelessly stereotypical attitudes about typical female attributes. It is disconcerting, for example, that in Expanded Universe Heinlein calls for a society where all lawyers and politicians are women, essentially on the grounds that they possess a mysterious feminine practicality that men cannot duplicate."

(Now WHY doesn't the University subscribe to Foundation amongst its e-journals? I would really like to read that article in full -- as well as be able to give the original source in context rather than Wikipedia! At least, unlike some of my good ideas, I see I am only 16 years too late with this one...)

[conradin]

I've only read Stranger in a Strange Land, and the portrayal of women is this weird mix of foward thinking and INCREDIBLY stereotypical (yet another thing to have come up in the RL discussion :) . Reminds me a bit of the representation of race in the Bony novels. Way more liberal than you'd have expected of the time, but also horrifically stereotypical at times.

I will confess, one of the reasons behind looking for more female protagonist novels, aside from expanding what I've read, is I do feel it'd like to have a supply of them for my daughter.

[foxe]

Yes, indeed. I do think (based on my own personal experience) that the acquisition of reading abilities precedes the development of advanced critical thinking skills by several years, and the fiction you give children to read will inevitably have a long-lasting effect on their worldviews; and although I wouldn't want to prevent a child from reading anything, it's better to give them the good stuff!

I'll have a think about others, especially anything more YA I can come up with (I think Tamora Pierce is considered YA; so is HDM).

[deathbyshinies]

This is really interesting, and annoyingly, I don't remember enough about David Eddings (read the Diamond Throne sage when I was 12, haven't picked him since) to comment intelligently.

for me I feel perhaps it has led to a separation in my mind of self and gender. If women are generally portrayed as weak and dependent (a stereotyping of stereotypes, I know, but bear with me), I can still be strong and independent, but when I'm doing so I'm just being me.

I theorised something a bit like this in my undergrad thesis in 2004 regarding C.S. Lewis' children's books. I suggested that the Narnia books' generally dismissive or outright hostile portrayal of adult women, combined with its generally positive portrayal of female children, encouraged a kind of aggressive splitting of identity for female child readers, a sort of subconscious 'I *have* to keep identifying as a child, because women are evil and creepy and they aren't allowed in Narnia'. To some extent that's true for all the characters, particularly given Lewis' slightly icky

[foxe]

Damn, I knew it was too good an idea for me not to have stolen it from somewhere :D In fact I remember you referring to it on occasion... "circumlocution", isn't it? I perceive it more overall as a simple male/female (or rather RealPerson/female) divide rather than a child-female/adult-female one, but I think you're right that in Narnia it's the latter.

[sols_light]

I think part of the problem is that Eddings always writes the same plot and characters with variations. So if one of his character archetypes doesn't ring true, no representation of the Mother or the wilful daughter will. I get the feeling they're all based on family or close friends, because the mannerisms are fairly well-described. I tend to agree with you that Leigh Eddings is most likely one part willful daughter and two parts mother and that between the two of them, they really can't come up with more characters than that. Sadly, I have to admit to reading everything Eddings has written, since I use it for my brainless reading when I'm not up to reading something else and it doesn't change in his later books. The one advantage I can see is it does tend to expose young males to the broad outline of how women who do fit the socially defined roles Eddings has actually think. It gives a realistic depiction of the stereotypes he uses. As a young male, it was genuinely useful to get an insight into how women can think, not