Are writers still perpetuating stereotypes? How do we portray women in speculative fiction? We’d like to believe that modern weird fiction has mostly moved on (we’d like to think that), but are we right? Have the fantasy and SF genres done the same? When US author Balogun Ojetade recently made a strong statement of his views on the portrayal of women in SFF, focusing especially on black characters, we paid attention.
The questions he asks can also easily be applied to how we present female characters of any colour in SFF – and horror.
“A closet misogynist has a vast array of words, comments, phrases and attitudes they can employ to subtly put a woman down, or disconcert her, but without it being immediately apparent that is what they are actually doing.”
We asked Balogun if we could host his article here, and he kindly agreed. It’s worth some thought…
Bombshells and Bae: Sexism in Afrofuturism
by Balogun Ojetade
I love reading and writing Afrofuturistic and Afroretroistic stories – particularly science fiction, fantasy and horror featuring larger than life heroes and sheroes and eye-popping action. I really do. But I am growing increasingly disgusted by the sexism within a lot of it. I can no longer read books in which people of color and women are constantly oppressed and seen as lesser beings in a world based on fantasy and science fiction – even if WE are the authors of it.
Lately – as the father of seven daughters who are all avid readers of Afrofuturism and Afroretroism – I have become particularly disgusted with the continuing sexism in the writing and in the visual art.
Writers, you can create a world with any rules you choose. In your world, you don’t have to continue to perpetuate the sexist tropes so prevalent in Fantasy and Science Fiction since its inception.
Are you that lacking in creativity that you cannot write something better? Are you that apathetic to the plight of our Sisters? Or have you convinced yourself you have to maintain some sexist status quo to sell?
Bruh. Do better.
Certain tropes have been formed and propagated. Given the overwhelming number of novels set in a sort of idealized, white, medieval Europe; given the grossly oversimplified and homogenized concept of medieval gender roles, stereotypes and sexist archetypes have arisen in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Black male writers are giving us the same old trite bullshit. Some examples of these played out, tired tropes are:
- The Spirited Woman Married Off Against Her Will To A Man She Doesn’t Love
- The Lone And Exceptional Woman Warrior In A Culture Of Male Warriors
- The Widowed Queen Fighting To Keep Her Throne Against An All-Male Cast Of Contenders
- The Woman Who Runs Away Rather Than Be Married Off Against Her Will But Who Then Needs Rescuing From Worldly Perils
- The Woman Whose Love Of Books And Scholarship Is Exceptional And Odd And Therefore Deemed Socially Awkward
- The Unmarried Woman Who Is Happy Being Unmarried And Therefore Considered An Oddity
- The Unmarried Woman Who Was Forbidden To Marry The Man She Loved And Is Therefore Sad And Unfulfilled
- The Woman Who Ran Away To Marry The Man Forbidden To Her And Who Is Now A Social Pariah
- The Penniless Woman Who Needs To Be Rescued From Penury As Her Gender Prevents Her From Working
- The Girl Forced To Dress As A Boy In Order To Live Out Her Socially Unacceptable Dreams
- The Adventurous Daughter Whose Parents Let Her Run Free But Threaten Her With Marriage Should She Fail
- The Female Scholar/Magician Trying To Make It In A Largely Male World
- The Lone Female Soldier/Technician/Magician/Scholar Whose Male Colleagues Don’t Take Her Seriously.
Come now. That’s all you got?
Bruh. Do better.
As writers, we are not bound by these tropes. We can choose to write otherwise. Or we can choose to take our exploration of sexism further.
In most Fantasy and Science Fiction, we are left with sexism as a background detail; a tool used to justify the plight or origins of women and girls in the story, but never actually addressed.
You, dear writer, can follow sexism to some of its natural conclusions rather than focus exclusively on those few exceptional women who have avoided it, forcing characters – and, by extension, the readers – to view sexism as more than an inevitable background detail.
Or, you can avoid writing default sexism in the first place by actually considering how gender roles work in your story, building a cultural, social and historical setting that usurps the expectations of the reader. You can create an equal society, or one whose inequalities are unusual; you could write a typically sexist society, but make sexism a major narrative focus. Lots of different ways to explore the topic… if you are willing.
If not?
Bruh. Do better
As writers, we should not perpetuate sexism by training readers to take its presence for granted: to refrain from so much as questioning or calling it out, let alone showing its worst consequences.
Most male authors write sexist stories without any conscious thought, simply because it never occurs to them to do otherwise. The freedom to ignore the relevance of women is just another form of privilege – a privilege more malignant than benign. And remember: if your equality looks homogeneous, then it’s probably not equality.
Modern sexism has become cunning, sly, codified. In the same way a closet racist would never dream of openly saying “nigger” but might refer to killing “zombies,” or make a pointed reference to someone Black having a natural rhythm, or liking fried chicken, a closet misogynist has a vast array of words, comments, phrases and attitudes they can employ to subtly put a woman down, or disconcert her, but without it being immediately apparent that is what they are actually doing.
Intelligent writers are particularly adept at this.
I have written several novels – Moses: The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman, Once Upon A Time in Afrika, A Haunting in the SWATS, A Single Link and Wrath of the Siafu and the just-released Initiate 16 – that attempt to turn these tropes on their heads. Read the novels and tell me if I succeeded.
Let us all strive harder for awareness of – and sensitivity to – sexism in our writings and our readings. Let us be more critical of it, for to do and say nothing about sexism is to help propagate it. Are you helping to propagate oppression?
If so?
Bruh. Do better.
As always, your comments are welcome and encouraged.
Balogun Ojetade writes novels, short stories, and comics, is a martial artist, and champions speculative fiction by black creators. And you can find all sorts of interesting stuff on his site The Chronicle of Harriet:
https://chroniclesofharriet.com/
We’ll link the Initiate 16 book some time soon, but in the meantime, his dark novel A Haunting in the SWATS is particularly worth a look:
“A substantial blockbuster, a type of urban fantasy, and brutal with it. This isn’t cute magic and laying small tricks – the book is dark and gritty. Savannah Swann’s strict rules are sometimes praiseworthy, sometimes highly objectionable; she’s a hard woman, torn over her loyalties and the strange nature of her own family, never mind what she has to fight. A blend of African source myths, demonic possession, shapeshifting – and dare we say even Lovecraft when the dirt really hits the fan. Read it as a big grimdark contemporary adventure, or as a twisted struggle of right and wrong, love and hate.”
We think we might have said the above, but we can’t remember.
He’s also in Terminus, an enjoyable new collection of speculative and horror tales set around black Atlanta, which has just become available in Kindle:
Do add your own thoughts – and join us in a couple of days for something entirely different…
Whilst you’re here, we should also mention that the latest dark, thrill-packed issue of Occult Detective Quarterly has just hit the stands. Don’t miss out.
