meridian_rose

I think I have less omg why children rage, because I do like kids and want kids, so I can relate to wanting kids, but it still bothers me that it seems to be the fate of every female character because I have a lot of friends who -don't- want kids and good for them, that's fine, it means I'll have someone I can pay to babysit without worrying if our kids get along!

I actually was having a lot of rage about how women are treated in media yesterday, because with my internet down, I've been playing a lot of video games, and I noticed something I hadn't before. I was on a level where you have to answer riddles, and the answers were like 'love' 'jealousy' 'greed' etc - Well on all the riddles with a negative answer like 'sin' - one of the potential answers you could give was 'woman.'

Now, it's worth mentioning that 'woman' wasn't the CORRECT answer to any of the negative riddles and you had to fight a monster if you selected it, but it just made me mad that for every riddle that was something like "I destroy man from within, what am I?" one of the potential answers was 'woman' and 'man' wasn't a potential answer to ANYTHING. Man could have at least been a potential answer to the riddles where the answer was 'war' or 'pride' since woman was a potential answer for 'sin', 'jealousy', and 'betrayal'.

ANYWAY, long comment is long, I meant to say that if you would like to read some fantasy stories about women who don't want kids, or if they have kids aren't really comfortable with motherhood, I'd recommend Tamora Pierce and Mercedes Lackey. Both of them are very good about portraying the full range of womanhood - there are characters who are 'traditional' women, characters who are anything but, and all kinds in between. Tamora Pierce in particular makes a point of emphasizing that traditional women don't have to feel threatened by non-traditional women. Wanting children and a husband doesn't mean you can't be friends with someone who doesn't.