I think what got me about the article wasn't that one character had a stronger voice than another. I have that issue all the time.
What got me was that it felt like the male character became the axis around which the relationship spun because he was the *male* character. It feels like the female character got shafted, because of that very old, fundamental thread in literature which tends to privileges tales of men over tales of women. In which women can only be supporting cast at best, because in the end It's A Man's World^TM.
Still, it does feel like there's a very oppressive, sexist sort of motif going on in some romance genre books that I've read, and what makes me sad is that these books are being written by women. It makes me a little depressed that apparently the patriarchy is so central to our lives that we can't even write books without looking through a *male* lens to do it.
That said? I also understand that's probably not at all what the author intended, but that's what struck me about it.
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Date: 2007-08-21 12:42 am (UTC)What got me was that it felt like the male character became the axis around which the relationship spun because he was the *male* character. It feels like the female character got shafted, because of that very old, fundamental thread in literature which tends to privileges tales of men over tales of women. In which women can only be supporting cast at best, because in the end It's A Man's World^TM.
Still, it does feel like there's a very oppressive, sexist sort of motif going on in some romance genre books that I've read, and what makes me sad is that these books are being written by women. It makes me a little depressed that apparently the patriarchy is so central to our lives that we can't even write books without looking through a *male* lens to do it.
That said? I also understand that's probably not at all what the author intended, but that's what struck me about it.