The last few months living with my sister's family has been such a growing process for me. I've learned a lot, been exposed to new and exciting things, and grown both emotionally and mentally. Living with my brilliant and innovative sister has certainly turned by corn dog-oriented world upside down. I've learned a lot about the fast-food, convienience focus of our world and been introduced to the beauty of vine-ripened tomatoes from your own backyard. There's something about eating fruit, veggies, and meat that's planted, tended, cared for, and harvested by your own hand. The world is definitely changing and I for one have an optimistic view of the pioneering home-grower.
But it hasn't just been food that's changed. I've noticed society's misuse of women and objectifying them to no more than sexual objects and how this is introduced even in the lives of little girls under ten. I find myself stopping when I tell my niece that she looks adorable in her dress but that she really looks like an adventurer on her way to explore new worlds.
And now that NaNoWriMo is only days away and my book is primed for production, I wonder more about the woman's role in a book. As a child I hated reading about female main characters. It was horrible. They always fit cookie-cutter shapes. She was spunky, unable to settle, and set out on an adventure she knew she could handle. She was abused and neglected by family, especially men, and hated her life and vowed to save others from what she suffered. She was lost until she found a man who guided her.
Now that I'm writing those stories I vowed to never have a girl like that. My MC's tend to be male, yes, I will admit that. But the girls that are in there are flashy enough that they don't need a man to solve their problems. But still, I can't help but feel like I'm falling in the female MC rut. Book 1 had a voluptuous FMC who turned into a traitor. Book 2 was better though. FMC who is destined to take the throne of a warrior tribe who takes it upon herself to be MMC's guide and then a FMC who finds herself overthrowing BBG (big bad guy), who is also her master, in order to protect society from corruption.
But Book 3 has female characters and they all have alterior motives. FMC1 from Book 2 is tempted to betray her friends to better her tribe. FMC is destroying everything in her path in order to provide for a family who has met its match in war times. FBBG is hunting MMC in order to achieve glory.
So my question for my readers is this. What is the woman's place in novels? To be the plucky young women, the brooding broad, or something else? What role is sexist in the novel?
Honestly, I think you've got it down. Everyone has their own secret hopes, wishes, dreams, and often we (both male and female) backstab and betray and sacrifice and lie and cheat and steal. But they're not doing it because it's their duty as a woman, or because it's their womanly wiles, or because it's manly, or anything.
ReplyDeleteThat's the thing-- I think writers for the last twenty years or so have tried so hard to be the opposite of everything women have been told to be, that they got stuck in a rut. Let them just be-- whether that's male, female, transgendered, motherly, adventurous, or whatever in between.
I've always thought it would be interesting to write a male main character and at then end of the book, change that male to a female. Or change a female character to a male. Change the name, maybe a few descriptions or romantic scenes but leave everything else the same. I wonder if people would be able to tell!
ReplyDeleteI would day do since males and females naturally behave differently. Females tend to be nurturing and emotion based while men are more textile and logical based. It definitely would be a cool experiment though, however a bad move for an author unless it was nonfiction psychological. The last thing an author wants is to throw a curve all like that to the reader. As a reader I would struggle to trust that author.
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