Women in Fantasy

I know this is contentious issue, and I plan to do other posts getting more into the nitty gritty of this issue, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of female representation in the fantasy I have read, both in terms of authors and characters.

While I make the concession, and do not doubt, that this genre appears to be geared towards men because men write it far more often, I feel this falls frustratingly flat. I also tend to see more women writing young adult fantasy in the vein of Twilight, writing speculative fiction and writing sci-fi than we do writing high fantasy (and if you can prove me wrong then please comment below, because I dearly need to read more female high fantasy writers).

In terms of narratives I'm going to discuss some of the more widely read fantasies and examine their female characters. And also I'd like to point out that I do not think this is a deliberate ploy by these writers to cast women from fantasy, but simply the paradigm that was set in place by Tolkein that seems to have seeped into the mainstream fantasy. I have had this thought for this blog because last night I was helping a friend with revisions for his story and his editor mentioned that the severe lack of strong female characters bordered on misogyny. Now he's not a misogynist, but it simply never occurred to him to include any reasonable female characters; his three main characters were dudes and the thieves were all guys and yet when I considered it, the complete lack of women was completely unrealistic and unnecessary and I began thinking about other fantasy texts and their use of women.

There are many strong women in fantasy that I have read, even if women are rare, but they often are not characters who push the plot forward and are frequently (as in, ridiculously so) beautiful.

I will start with Lord of the Rings. It is basically the father of high fantasy and it is well documented that in the entirety of the expanse of middle earth, there are three women; Arwen, Eowyn and Galadrial. Two are princesses (yes technically Eowyn is Theodin's niece but don't nit pick) and one is a queen. Sure, these women are in power positions, and Eowyn even goes all bad ass and kills some orcs and faces the Witch King, but the fate of middle earth does not rest within these women. Arwen is little more than a distant love interest for Aragorn and only influences the main plot thrust when she delivers Frodo to Rivendel. Galadrial only appears in Lothlorien to give the travelers some gifts, impart some wisdom and be freaking beautiful. And Eowyn manages to be in a love triangle with the only man in the entirety of middle earth in a romantic relationship (except Celeborn). Theodin has no wife, Denethor has no wife, Elrond has no wife (who appears) Eomer, Faramir, Frodo, Bilbo, no one is even connected to a woman. While sure, it would be wrong to simply include female characters to be the male's companions, their lack of presence is startling to considers, and this is a text which has formed the framework for modern fantasy.

I recently finished Magician by Raymond E. Feist and I noticed a few more interesting female characters, but I was similarly disappointed by them. The notable female characters were; Carline, Aglaranna, Anita, and Katala. They all had one thing in common; they were beautiful. So far - of the seven characters we've considered - not one has been plain. I haven't considered much of why, but it is interesting nonetheless. Three are royal, one is a slave. All are strong willed but none of them are capable of driving the narrative*. The issue lies with the power they have, and I do not deny that the medieval society that Feist based Mikemia upon would have cast women into these more subjected roles, but the idea of Fantasy is to create your own society and rules. I'm also adding that I'm aware of Mara in the trilogy of the empire, so I'm certainly not critical of Raymond, but I will continue with my analysis of his first book.
*Now I am aware that I am drifting somewhat into feminism territory, but I do not identify as such. I am a humanist and seek equality for all and do not subscribe to an ideology even I agree with facets of it. This post is simply observational.

Katala is a slave and there is little she can do other than be saved by Pug. She is strong willed and stoic in the face of difficulty, but she also could be taken out of the plot without changing it at all. Only Pug's return to Carline would really be different, and perhaps his change would be less clear, but plot-wise she is not useful at all.
Anita also is another needless character for plot reasons, as Arutha would have escaped Krondor whether he found her or not. She is utterly helpless and fits the mold of meek fantasy princess nicely.
Carline is another princess, but she is strong willed, has complex romantic emotions and is never truly dependent on anyone else, but she also get left behind in the war, both by her family and by the writer. At the beginning she felt as though she would be an important character, but ends up highly peripheral and feels like simply a plot device to increase Pug's standing with the duke, which led to the rest of the story taking place.
Aglaranna is where I really took issue. The other's fill fairly well considered tropes of fantasy women, but the elf queen is the leader of a realm. She is powerful and wise and great and... falls in love with Tomas and basically loses her rationality when he is around. Sure she retains her throne at the end, but the entire war is fought by Tomas, not her, as she fawns over him and worries about her emotions.

Maybe the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by Tolkein's contemporary, C. S. Lewis, is a great example of females driving plot; particularly Lucy and The White Witch. I'd love to be proved wrong, but there is a dearth of females in this genre, or at least the most popular books in it. Eragon tries to save Arya but there are otherwise few females beyond the dragon in his book. Again George R. R. Martin breaks the conventions, but still consider how many of his ladies are beautiful.
This is why I take deliberate steps to give my female characters more room in my fantasy writing. It feels more natural to have a troop of men, but I ask myself why, in this world which I have created, aren't women capable of saving the world... so I make them do it. It's fun, but for some reason, still considered somewhat unnatural.