Cage Match Gender

To take offense when no offense is intended is, frankly, silly.

Where's the stat's on minority characters/authors?

What you're suggesting is, in essence, Affirmative Action - which is nothing more than good-intentioned reverse-descrimination. That dog won't hunt. It's been proven.

Enjoy the game for what it is - not what it isn't.

To take offense when no offense is intended is indeed silly. Good thing I'm not taking offense! But just because no one wanted to offend does not mean that there isn't a dramatic difference in how women and men are represented in the contest.

Such representation matters. Women and men take their cues about the genre from how the science fiction and fantasy industry presents itself. The Cage Match says that 80% of genre authors should be men, and 80% of the kick-ass characters are men. It may say this implicitly and unintentionally, but it still says it. In doing so the Cage Match paints the genre as a boys club.

Personally, I want 50% of genre authors to be women and 50% of genre readers to be women! I think it makes the whole genre stronger!

As for Affirmative Action, I don't see any need to get drawn into a discussion of real world politics when dealing with fictional characters. There are literally hundreds of fictional characters who it would be fun to imagine fighting one another. Can anyone definitively say that the Wee Free Men are absolutely better than (say) Skade for this contest? Of course not! Since the list of 32 contestants is subjective anyway, why *not* make half of them women?

--Chris

(You bring up a good point about other kinds of minorities, be they racial minorities, sexual-orientation minorities, or anything else you can think of. If you are interested I encourage you to count things up. With a quick look at the field I'd guess you will find some pretty strong disparities in other categories as well.)

"Personally, I want 50% of genre authors to be women and 50% of genre readers to be women! I think it makes the whole genre stronger!"

Personally, I want 100% of genre authors to write fascinating stories based on interesting characters. I couldn't care any less whether those authors and their characters have an "innie" or an "outie".

Exactly how would a 50-50 split make the genre any stonger?

"I don't see any need to get drawn into a discussion of real world politics when dealing with fictional characters."

Me either, so why did you bring real world political-correctness into it with your original post??

While it's a good point, I think it speaks way more (as you said) to the dearth of *good* female characters in fantasy and the lack of female authors. Suvudu I think did a good job of representing females in their match: they could have chose Harry Potter, but instead chose Hermione Granger. And you really can't pull that many good female characters out of older books like Lord of the Rings or especially the Chronicles of Narnia (which are ridiculously sexist at times).

You may have a point with Interview and Arya Stark; however, Arya Stark is a child and they'd already gone lengths to add Hermione. Though that would have made that fight a little fairer, I suppose.

I haven't read most of the other examples you pointed out, but almost all of the characters chosen here are the "main characters" of their book, more or less. Picking just from the great works of fantasy almost guarantees you're going to have a majority of males; showing breadth would require maybe a 64 slot cage match.

Ahem, Xena Warrior Princess plz?

OH, silly me! I meant to add Alia Atreides as well.

I have been reading Scifi and Fantasy since the early 60's. While claiming a "dearth" of female characters then would have been valid. That is just not the case anymore. Both male and female authors have some marvelous female "kick-a$$" characters.
Lady Juniper MacKensie; S. M. Sirling author.
Elena Michaels; Kelly Armstrong author,
Eve Dallas; J.D. Robb author
And those are just the ones I can think of with 10 or more books in the series. I don't care if it is PC or not, there should have been more women in the match-up.

I will say that one thing we've regretted was pitting two female characters against each other in the first round (Anita Blake and Polgara). To be fair, we were just as regretful of having two SF characters against each other in the first round (The Shrike and Arthur Dent). In both cases, we eliminated at least one person from a more under-represented aspect of the broader SF/F genre.

That said, I will say we didn't actively snub any women characters. We just tried to include the biggest characters, period (with some caveats, which are secret...). And we didn't actively snub women authors. We just sat around, thought: "Who's cool", and went with it.

Still, I like that you're bringing this up, because it is an issue that should be discussed--if not for this cage match specifically, than for the genre in general.

So this leads me to the question: do men relate to female fantasy/scifi heroes? Do they enjoy reading about those as much as they do as reading about male heroes?

I know some men that just aren't interested in reading books in which the main character is a woman. While women don't seem to mind so much about the gender of the hero. Maybe because women don't have as much of a choice, even female authors often have male heroes. The female secondary character certainly has grown in popularity since the early days of the genre, but if we're talking 'biggest character' there still is a lag. Do male heroes sell better?

@ illuminatedwax: I wouldn't call the Chronicles of Narnia "ridiculously sexist". Many of them were, in fact, sexist in comparison to our modern views of the issue. But for the time they were quite ordinary. Look, however, at The Horse and His Boy, which was ahead of its time in terms of gender equality.

@ Lenalena: Most female characters I have read are poorly written. The reason seems to be that most authors cannot write outside of their own experiences very well ("write what you know", after all). Since we've established that Sci-Fi\Fantasy authors have tended to be men in the past, it is no surprise that most female characters are so written. For my part, I'd rather a male author write good male characters, and a female author write good female characters, than for either gender to step outside of their areas of personal experience and write something unconvincing. Personally, I'm more offended by a generalized and stilted portrayal of a female character than by the omission of one.

If the publishing world is still somehow holding onto gender prejudice after the widespread success of Harry Potter and Twilight, then I'd say the gender bias belongs to the business, and not to the folks at Suvudu for compiling a list of their favorite characters.

To be fair, I haven't heard a single male question the necessity of a female protagonist in Twilight, but have heard females question the gender of many a male protagonist. That, at least, indicates to me that men aren't the only ones who may have a problem reading a story based on the protagonist's gender.

I think the selection is a pretty fair representation of the women in the genre at large! No point shoving in women who would not be able to play in this field (as it is I think Lyra was a trifle forced - would rather have seen, say, Lanfear from WOT (now _there's_ a powerful woman in her own right!) or perhaps Arkady/Bayta Darrell from the Foundation series, or Teela Brown (turned protector, maybe?), if we needed a woman! Or, add another GRRM character and put in Dany+dragons....all of these would hold their own better than Lyra - yes, even Arkady. Intelligence trumps alethiometer anytime)

I had rather hoped to see Granny Weatherwax too - but hold on, aren't the Nac Mac Feagles kinda matriarchal? ;) Does that count, I wonder....maybe we could award them a 0.3 or something?

Oh, and with regards to the statement "Women and men take their cues about the genre from how the science fiction and fantasy industry presents itself. The Cage Match says that 80% of genre authors should be men, and 80% of the kick-ass characters are men."....maybe I'm reading you wrong, but aren't you kind of confusing cause and effect here? Only Cthulhu (and, possibly, Chuck Norris) are allowed to do that y'know...

I also noticed the lack of women. I was shocked that Alanna was not in this! She has defeated gods, and is a warrior mage.

Other women who I think could have gone all the way are: Rhapsody (although we do have a lot of naming mages already); Jaenelle (black jewels books); Phedre (Kusheil books) -- she isn't much of a fighter, but she can take a lot of punishment and knows the name of God (which in her world is like naming anything)!; or even the Crow girls (from the de Lint books).

My problem was not actually the number of women, but the lack of strong women (as lakesidy said). I just can't see Lyra or Hermione going far in these battles, at all. Anita Blake was a nice shout-out, but no way could she go far. And Kahlan has to get way too close (although her knife throwing is sweet in the show) to be a serious contender.

Maybe my secondary list has some less-popular women in it and it is good for most voters to know the characters, but people have to know Alanna.

Also, perhaps I misread Foreshadowing, but although the main character in Twilight is a woman, I would *never* consider her a heroine. More a damsel. It makes me so sad that I know so many non-fantasy readers who have only read those books.

i hate to state something that is proven over and over in history...but here goes

with a few exceptions i.e. giving birth, being emo, etc

Man > Woman
Male Ninja > Female Ninja
Male chef > Female chef
Male Doctor > Female Doctor
Male (insert title) > Female (insert title)

it's science.

My math has 5 females not 4 in the opening 32 Khalan, Polgra, Anita, Lyra, Hermione. One sexless robot and one sexless demonic Elder God. 1 dragon I dont know what sex. and 24 males. Seems about representitive of the heroes in the genres as a whole.

Notable Misses Missed: Rhapsody as many have said, Honor Harrington, And Paksenarion. These are just from my library and limited to Main Characters. But if one takes the Main characters and villians and or signifigant supporting Characters from the genre You would realy be stretching it to try a half and half feild sex wise... Political correctness and pandering to all the possibly slighted groups leads to a bad contest here I think.

Stick with the best/ most compelling characters in a combat situation. Thanks for the event svudu.

Quotas are not applicable in the Fantasy genre: there are fictional all-men/all-women worlds, there are worlds where changing the sex is on par with changing your clothes (Glasshouse, Charles Stross), there are worlds where 'man' and 'woman' are defined differently (are there in fact any fictonal worlds where the definition could be said to be the same? - is a she-elf a woman?)

To introduce real-world quotas on fiction is ridiculous (and to prove it, i'm going for reductio ad absurdum, so sorry): Should there be x% Christians? x% Not-rosy-white? x% Psychologically-norm? x% gays? x% Poor?
Most of the entrants are not even human (whatever that may mean in a Fantasy context) - Aragorn? not human. Ged? What was the last human you saw pulling down lightning?

I can understand the plight of the thread-starter, and empathise with it; realise, though, that even in the real world the concept of male and female is an abstract one: People mostly subscribe to one or the other, or are subscribed by their environment, yet however you physically define it (be it testosterone levels, organs or genetics)- there will always be 'manly' women, and 'womanly' men, proving that the distinction is not anything factual.

As to the "[..] and 80% of the kick-ass characters are men" -> i too think that 80% (or more) of kick-ass characters are men. The real question re: what-is-sad-about-this seems to me to be: Why 'kick-ass'? Is Conan a role model? should Conan, rewrittten as the female Conine be a role model for women?

And about the "I want 50% of genre authors to be women [..]" - That is wishing for an effect, instead of a cause. Just as in any other literary category, the reading preferences of the buyers determine the successful authors. I can not for the life of me explain why someone like Dan Brown could rise to where he is, but to wish for 'more good authors' is actually wishing for 'less lobotomized readers'.

Suzie Shooter from the "Nightside" series could go pretty far. Also, Surreal from the "Black Jewels" series, and Brienne of Tarth from the later "Song of Ice and Fire" books.