Writing fantasy about oppression

[limyaael]

All right then

Comments

[ciage]

I wouldn't call what you said oppression so much as enforced ideology (even the notion of superiority and difference is objective in most cases, right?). We might start a debate on something such as desired beauty in women, one could suggest in Wolf's Beauty Myth that men inflict an impossible standard upon women, whereas I might argue using Findley's Not Wanted on the Voyage that women subjugate the standard of beauty on other women, and anyone who doen't fit to standard is outcast (Or Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment, but Findley came to mind first) meanwhile both come to a conclusion that in western society that beauty as a whole is a standard that most women strive to achieve. As much as I enjoy this rant I know I'm ignorant on the subject of oppression, even though I think even an oppressor class has a set of guidelines that they too must adhere to. A man is told that he must like such and such a woman, and if she doesn't meet up to standards physically he is condemned on at least a social cycle, and likewise some women would take

[limyaael]

What you say is true. What I'm arguing against, specifically (this is in point 5) is the idea that the pressure on the dominant group- males, in this case- is as great as the pressure on women. I do not believe it is. They may be punished, but the consequences are usually much less, and they enjoy other advantages that can compensate for it.

[vyctori]

I am printing off this rant right now and pinning it on my bulletin board where I store my random novel facts and I am consulting it just about every time I sit down to write.

Thank you for all the thoughtfodder.

[limyaael]

You're very much welcome!

[limyaael]

That sounds like an interesting variation! I've read a few stories that concentrate on such oppressed groups (well, more than "a few" if you're including all kinds of oppressed groups, including those who practice magic), but rarely any that pay that much attention to backstory. The persecution always seems to have started suddenly and to have had no basis in reality.

[mad_maudlin]

This character is not consciously being a hypocrite, but she’s still benefiting from the class structure she claims to want to tear down.

Jeez, this is the protagonist of my last couple of NaNo novels. She has very strong (and atypical, for her culture) feelings about individual rights and civil liberties, but that's because she's sick of pervasive sexism and is deeply freaked out by the idea of being anyone's liege-lady. When her love interest, who is basically a jumped-up serving boy, brings up issues of class and politics (and let's not talk about his friend the democratic agitator) she just Does Not Get It. It makes for some fun conversations.

[limyaael]

I really like characters like this, provided the author can refrain from the tendency to say that, not only does she believe she's right, she is right. That's usually accomplished by having other characters lose the arguments or just never speak about their beliefs. I'm glad that the protagonist in your novels does have some trouble from the people around her.

[pyrasaur]

Sounds like a great rant to me, and the words of wisdom at the end apply to just about anything a writer might choose to explore.

[limyaael]

Thank you!

I'm not sure why there sometimes seems to be such a divide bewteen the critique an author gets when submitting stories and what ensues when it's published. I'd think that practice in accepting one kind makes it easier in accepting the other. Maybe critique after it's published carries the reminder that the writer can't go back and revise.