the fact that almost every single fantasy writer thinks they need misogyny is a sign of a lack of creativity, but i also think that if they want to have it, it’s a creative travesty to have it work in ways that 100% conform to the context of earthly, human misogyny on earth. like prejudice and stereotype is fine in fantasy worlds because it exists irl but let’s have, like, an orc society where orc women suffer limitation and discrimination because they’re thought to be too ferocious and deadly to be in polite society. like women in the real world are sometimes considered too flighty or emotional so there’s a little bit of a real world connection but it’s different because it’s NOT the real world
I mean, ask “why is my fantasy culture misogynistic” but also “why does my fantasy culture think women are less intelligent, associate women with duties inside the home, think menstruation is unclean, think women are supposed to submit to their husband’s authority, stereotype women as shallow and obsessed with beauty, or even have the concept of a slut?”
like your fantasy world doesn’t have the story of Eve and the apple and eve’s temptation so every misogynistic idea people have ever derived from that story just isn’t there. maybe your world has a creator goddess and women are associated with the powers of creation and everyone thinks they’re supposed to be protected and have children/compose poems/grow plants/otherwise follow occupations that involve creating and growing things but women without creative or nurturing instincts are shunned. like, this has enough real world similarity to be relatable and comment on the real world somewhat, but it’s not an exact uninnovative copy of real world misogyny informed by western and/or European thought and belief and Christian tradition and so on.
Also, you have to take into account the effects that culture and mythology and differences in biology and so on are actually going to have on how misogyny works in your world.
I read a book one time where the dominant religion was based around goddesses and the world had been ruled by queens for a long time but the author still had the protagonist be presumed as unfit and discriminated against due to her gender. This was a major plot point and she had to disguise as a boy to follow her goals. The world-building the author established didn’t actually make it to having an effect on a character and plot level. She introduced misogyny into the plot with basically no world-building basis, cultural or mythological or historical or otherwise, for it.
Even something subtle like having a female rather than male deity in the dominant religion will have a huge effect on the small, everyday details that affect your female characters’ lives. Having your entire society be matriarchal is going to shape everything from the bottom up.
if your fantasy society by default has people be free to have as many sexual partners as they want and to switch sexual partners when they want, they’re not going to even HAVE slurs or insults relating to someone’s sexual activity. Swears probably won’t even be related to sex, since sex isn’t as transgressive a subject. Having reliable birth control through magical means is going to change society a lot, since having sex just won’t necessarily involve risking pregnancy, even in societies that are not bery advanced, so inheriting titles and property isn’t made messy by people having multiple sex partners. If charms or potions or spells for birth control are pretty easy to make and work reliably, it’s worth thinking about how cultures will develop differently just based on that. If your fantasy world is populated by creatures who reproduce differently than humans, or have differing degrees of sexual dimorphism, their attitudes about women (if they have women) and sex and sexual autonomy and homosexuality are likely to be somewhat different than what people immediately think is Realistic. For example, if people can produce biological children through magical means, what could that mean for society? Could a child have biological same-sex parents or more than two parents? If so, then that’s sufficient basis for seemingly fundamental aspects of society like marriage and gender to be radically different. If the gender of the parents doesn’t matter when making a child, would there even be a distinction between “gay” and “straight?” What would gender look like? What would family look like? What would the connection between family and sex be? Would people get married?
What if you decide elves aren’t a sexually dimorphic species at all? Would your Elvish have gendered pronouns then; would people publicly identify themselves as “man” or “woman?” Conceivably, in a society like that asking someone’s gender could be a very rude and personal question, since the only way to interpret it is “can you become pregnant or not” and no one is just going to share that with a stranger they just met!
(It perplexes me that people think exploring this stuff is “pandering” instead of being absolutely fascinating.)
But overall the challenge of writing fantasy is that you, yourself, are writing from your own cultural context, and apparently that can be very hard to step out of.
Great post. I think I’m guilty of this in my first attempt at a novel. It’s such an easy mindset to fall into if you don’t take the time to really think about it (which I didn’t), but it’s something I’m going to actively work to remedy in further drafts and future stories.
It’s really hard to think about! Because at the end of the day, it all comes out of your imagination, and you’re a person within your own culture and cultural context, and you literally can’t escape that. But it’s still worth thinking about!
Honestly if you think misogyny exists entirely because of Christianity you could do to read up on some other cultures. But apart from that, yes. Read some anthropology, break yourself out of the idea that the way your society does things is the one true natural way. Then think about your world-building again, when you're not bringing quite so much unconscious baggage to it