I love heroic epic fantasy novels. If I immerse myself in the writing, I can be the hero and explore a new, different world. Most epic fantasy novels are set in a medieval style setting, pre-technology. And the gender roles from our own medieval history are standard in these new worlds.
But some authors spin an entirely new world, with gender equality seamlessly woven into the fabric of the culture. This type of thoughtful worldbuilding is my go-to for enjoyment.
By gender equal, I’m speaking of a society where people of equal class and ability are permitted the roles they are qualified for, no matter their gender. These societies seem to exist more commonly in Urban Fantasy and Science Fiction, with Epic Fantasy trailing.
We fantasy authors can imagine such rich new worlds, with dragons, giant felines, dwarves and elves. But it can be hard to create worlds that change how men and women live their lives and interact with each other. My protagonist Sulis in Desert Rising grew up in a desert culture where women and men go where destiny calls. But I found myself trying to assign roles where they didn’t fit the characters’ personality—because of the roles I, as a woman, take on in my life!
Here are a few go-to novels for gender equal societies. In most of these novels, gender equality isn’t the theme. It is simply a part of the society, written unselfconsciously.
Valdemar—Mercedes Lackey’s Arrows of the Queen
The land of Valdemar is one I’ve visited over and over, enjoying each reread. Valdemar is refreshingly egalitarian, with just a few small sects of poverty and prejudice. Kings and Queens have ruled through the ages. Men and women mingle in the ranks of Healer, Herald and Bard, and every pledge has the same training and expectations. Sexuality between men and women is also not constricted. The societies of the Tayledras and the Talesedrin in the same world are also lively and egalitarian.
Hawk Haven/Bright Bay—Jane Lindskold’s Through Wolf’s Eyes
The society Lindskold created in Hawk Haven is not egalitarian, but it is gender equal. There are distinct class differences, but both women and men inherit and both sexes compete to see who will become heir to the throne. Men and women of the upper class ally in marriage to consolidate power in the political sphere. In the lower classes, husbands and wives are equal partners in business and life. This works well with the character of Firekeeper, raised by wolves and confused by society’s restrictions. Adding gender restrictions would have created another burden on the character. This is an excellent example of a fat, juicy, epic fantasy series creating depth with unrestricted gender roles.
Paksenarrion—Elizabeth Moon’s Oath of Fealty
I was deeply happy when Moon, after an almost twenty year hiatus, released five more books in the world of Paksenarrion. This world is wonderfully varied. Elves, dwarves, gnomes, rangers—all the beloved tropes of fantasy are represented. I love the egalitarianism of the military ranks—men and women bunk together, train together and fight together. They are judged and promoted based on talent and accomplishment. A former Marine, Moon instills a comfortable comradeship that defies gender stereotypes, and that feeling is spread throughout her entire world. A true immersive pleasure of politics, adventure and heroic sacrifice.
Tanya Huff’s The Quarters
I love Huff’s worlds. Her Confederation Science Fiction series is another wonderful egalitarian military read. But for pure fantasy pleasure, Sing the Four Quarters is what I reach for. The characters love whomever they please, without prejudice. The Bards sweep me along on their Walks, into a culture where men and women work side by side in the trades they trained in. Sexuality is a gift and is not used as a weapon.
The Den of Inequity/Sanctuary in Ephemera—Anne Bishop’s Sebastian
In Daughter of the Blood, Bishop reverses power between the sexes, and corrupt women become debased and cruel with unlimited power. I was so excited by the novelty of that world, I gave it to a male friend. He gave it back with a wince, only partially read. But in the world of Ephemera, Bishop creates several landscapes in which women and men (and incubi and succubi) take the roles they were born to, without prejudice. I love the equal opportunity darkness and depravity of the Den of Inequity, which is balanced so nicely by the serenity of Sanctuary. Both sides of human nature are shown in this original world. Bishop is a master at exploring sexuality and power between the sexes.
Kelley Grant grew up in the hills of Ohio’s Amish country. Her best friends were the books she read, the stories she created, and the forest and fields that inspired her. Her epic fantasy novel Desert Rising is available now from HarperVoyager.
I love that these books are all written by women, hahahah.
@1. Unionjane I noticed the same thing. It’s almost as if women dream of equality or something!
Wheel of Time
Malazan Book of the Fallen
Helen Lowe’s Derai in her two epic fantasy novels are extremely gender balanced, and other societies in that world are as well.
One thing I’ve noticed is a tendency in fantasy for idealized societies to have gender equality, while humans and other “lesser” races plod along in our sexist ignorance. The elves in Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle come to mind.
I also want to note that this is one area where fantasy RPGs, both of the tabletop and video game variety, tend to excel. Admittedly, it’s as much as anything a vehicle to allow maximum character customization, but those worlds tend to allow women to do almost anything.
Kameron Hurley’s The Mirror Empire has three different societies, each with a different gender scheme. The Dhai have a rather fluid concept of gender, with five different genders.
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Besides the two series RobM mentioned (both written by men), the pic that illustrates the article is of Legend of Korra. That series, along with the predecessor, was created by two men.
I read, and very much enjoyed, the first three Paksenarrion books (I think of them as an extension or evolution of what Éowyn thematically started), but I do recall that she was fairly unusual and had to counter social expectations (starting with her family expecting her to marry). Perhaps less so over time. But inequality did mark her beginnings. It didn’t strike me as though the entire world was (yet) enlightened.
Were the later Paksenarrion books simply a progression?
Ditto that. Lowe’s are very balanced. I would also add in the fantasy series by Elyse Salpeter (though not quite epic) and the a new epic fantasy series I just found by Raven Oak. Both are quite balanced without weakening male characters to get there.
I am glad that someone mentioned Malazan Book of the Fallen – it is one of my favourite books where it doesn’t matter whether you are male or female. It is filled with lots of strong women who have lots of agency, and I love that. It was one of the reasons I liked the BSG reboot as well, because I noticed that it did not matter whether one was male or female at all.
Wheel of time has some societies that appear egalitarian, but one thing that I have noticed as I read through the first time is Jordan has an obsession with defined gender roles – almost all his societies have special rules for women and for men, so I would hesitate to call his societies egalitarian. They aren’t exactly matriarchal either, in most cases. I think he had a lot of fun exploring gender roles and stereotypes, but I would say that there are very few societies in that world where you would not have a defined gender role that you would have to fit in as an adult. For example, in the Two Rivers, I think most folks would recognize that the Women’s Circle is truly the ruling body in each town, however, there is Men’s business and Women’s business- and never shall the two meet. This doesn’t exactly meet the criteria of anybody can do anything they want. There is also the stereotype of the “Village Goodwife” that gets thrown around. Not condemning the art in this post as I am loving wheel of time through this first read through.
Kind of shocked not to see Left Hand of Darkness on this list (also written by a woman). Can’t get more gender equal than ambisexuality.
RHa-Left Hand of Darkness is SF not Fantasy.
I have been reading the necromancer chronicles by Amanda Downum especially book two The Bone Palace.
Add to this list A Crown For Cold Silver by Alex Marshal. http://bibliotropic.net/2015/04/22/a-crown-for-cold-silver-by-alex-marshall/
Steven Brust’s Dragaera appears to be a completely gender-equitable society, although it certainly has its issues with racism and classism.
I don’t know if you’d call the Taltos books “epic fantasy,” though, in spite of their sorcerers and witches and such; there’s a science-fiction substrand to them. The Khaavren Romances would probably qualify.
I also liked Laurie J. Marks’ Elemental Logic books, the first of which I picked up at one of those book exchanges at the local YMCA and spend the next few years hunting down the second and third books — they’re all apparently pretty hard to find. Still waiting on the fourth book, but I’m not sure if there are plans to write/publish it or not at this point.
Kristen Britain’s Green Rider books have gender equality. Many of the Riders are women.
There are a bunch of fantasy books like this – everything is very unequal except gender. Sometimes very oppressively unequal except for gender. Is that really so appealing? Or plausible in terms of how human nature and social dynamics work? E.g. slavery tended to undermine the situation of even upper-class slaveowning women.
@3: Wheel of Time? Eww, no. Those books have some kind of bizzarre seperate-but-equal thing going on, and may have a powerful enclave of magic ladies and some female leaders, but they’re treated really negatively. I would not use WoT as any sort of admirable example of gender equality. Its treatment of gender is deeply essentialist, and when you dig down past all the “Strong women, rawr!” into how things actually play out, really misogynistic at its core.
Mark T Barnes’ The Echoes of Empire series has gender equality, as well as an enlightened view of sexuality with openly bisexual & gay characters – including gay marriage. Women characters drive story and wield authority in such a way that it’s seemless, in a world where there’s been nothing but gender equality.
Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson, the Malazan Marines are very much gender equal
@3 and @20. I’m seconding what Rune said about Wheel of Time. There was a lot of TALK about women being in charge, but you only saw a little of that in action. I can count on one hand the number of times a woman won a magic fight against a man (actually it might only take one finger), and a lot of the narrative was Rand proving to magical women that he was the boss. Women were not ordinarily seen a warriors, and in the one society that did allow it they served in a separate unit and could not also get married or raise their own children (but men could easily be warriors, and husbands, and fathers). Let’s not forget the spanking with was passed off as a thing that was totally cool for a husband to do to his wife. Finally all the polyamory only went one way: one man plus several women, with no implication of sexual relationships between those women.
Yes, I did get my name from the series. I found Pevara to be that awesome a character.
I agree that the Wheel of Time novels are in no way “gender equal”.
But I have to wonder about Sebastian, too, because the description (I haven’t read it, but I’ll give it a try, now) reminded me vividly of the previously mentioned Mirror Empire. Turning gender stereotypes on their head doesn’t make for “gender equality”, and Hurley’s treatment left me very much divided. On the one hand, women are certainly entitled to have some literature that shows their gender with the upper hand; on the other hand, I like to think that a female-dominant society would actually be a better society than the one we have, and that was definitely not the case; on the gripping hand, it’s still just abuse of the weak by the strong…
Women have equality in the western world. Let’s not be fooling ourselves here.
Although the main protagonists are male, The Gentleman Bastards series features women at all levels of society who are considered just as capable and competent as their male counterparts.
@@@@@ 28, in the case of the actual Gentlemen Bastards, I’m pretty sure the woman is considered to be more capable then the men. #TeamSabetha
Yep, Sabetha is awesome.
I picked up Arrows of the Queen when I was at one of crankiest, most critical times of my life (trying to work on my master’s). Still, I felt like Lackey was being unfair to the Holder people. When ALL the men in a culture are polygamous–most with multiple wives–that means a lot of men who are dead and gone. The only explanation in the story seemed to be that they died defending the border. Going by Talia’s family as a norm, around 90% of the men don’t make it to middle age. And we’re surprised that their culture copes by being polygamous and ruthlessly maintaining order in the face of such constant upheaval?
If you want them to change their survival strategy, the first thing you should do is help them survive.
I think it’s worth mentioning the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. There are fewer female characters compared with male, but they are all treated equally in a world where the magic and setting works to make normal gender stereotypes pointless. Magical ability and social class are the only real divisions in the series.
Since multiple people have now covered the “WoT is in no way Gender Equal”, my original purpose in logging in is done. However, when trying to think of examples, I came across one that makes me wonder… is late-series Discworld’s Ankh Morpork possibly one?
Obviously the Disc as a whole isn’t, and early-era Ankh-Morpork probably isn’t much better, but Terry Pratchett was playing with gender roles from nearly the very beginning; the third book in the series is Equal Rites (where a girl gains “wizard magic” and seeks to be trained at the all-male Unseen University). By the time you get to Night Watch about the only places in A-M where gender might matter are the Seamstresses’ Guild (probably) and the University. While the University is arguably a big stumbling block in this argument, by that point in the series the Wizards have also largely been reduced to ineffectual clowns puttering off in their own world with little impact on the workings of the city.
Of course, the other, obvious “egalitarian” society in the Discworld is the Dwarves. Depending on how you look at it, though, there are definitely problems with the dwarves. Before the Littlebottom revolution (ie, Dwarven women publically acknowledging that they were women), you could say they were truly egalitarian, since all dwarves behaved the same in society regardless of gender. However, the “unisexual” dwarven society presented a decidely male image from a human perspective. It was also very conformist, so the lack of gender distinctions could be offset by the lack of options for dwarves of any gender. Still, gender was quite literally not an issue in traditional dwarven society.
This somewhat turns the narrative of the “evolution” of dwarven society into a better, more progressive one as they come into increasing contact with other (mainly human, mainly Morporkian) societies into one where they suffer a loss of cultural identity and gain arbitrary gender distinctions that the hadn’t before possessed. On the other hand, this can also be seen as part of a greater expansion of freedoms of the individual.
Anyway, it was just something that popped in my head and I thought I’d throw out there…
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You’re forgetting about the Seanchan. They had women warriors and, in their society, no one considered it strange. Examples: Egeanin, Tylee and that recruiter Mat met in CoT. There were both noblewomen and noblemen with power in that society. There had been only women as Empress in the last hundreds of years, but that didn’t stop men from trying to get that power (Tuon’s brothers and Captain General Galgan). There were no men who used the One Power, but that’s to be expected from all societies due to the Breaking of the World.
I did notice that these are all from women writers, though my favourite series in years, the Echoes of Empire by Mark T Barnes, handles gender equality in an elegant way. There’s never any doubt that the genders are equal, the same way that a person’s sexuality is never questioned. There’s even gay marriage between some male couples, and the woman POVs is openly bisexual. Barnes’ world assumes that the genders have always been equal, to the point where the made up language in the story has gender-neutral words for positions, ranks, etc. Added to that are an equal number of influential women characters to men that drive story. Women are scholars, warriors, politicians, etc with no preference for gender in what a person can do in life.
@33
Terry was extremely (and firmly) egalatarian, even the Seamstresses had Mr Harris’s Blue Cat Club (after all, un-natural acts are only natural).
Every guild had substantial female (and species) representation at all levels. The Witches and Wizards really are the only exceptions, and Esk is still around to bridge that gap.
I would trust a list on gender equality more if it included at least one entry from an author of each gender.
Even beyond quota-thinking, I would have found it interesting to explore how male and female authors paint a gender equal society.
Fortunately the comments section has served me well for this, and a couple great recommendations are there. Thanks!
I’m trying to remember if I’m forgetting something in the Lightbringer series by Weeks. I think the bounderies in that society were magic and possibly money.
What about Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s awesome Liaden Universe series? Gender equality and a very polite society built on humanistic ideals.
Thanks for this! I too like this in a book. There is also Point of Hopes and Point of Dreams by Melissa Scott and Lisa Barnett that have this sort of gender-equal society too, as well as flexible relationships. I highly recommend! Going to look into your list tonight!
@20
I am afraid I really don’t see WoT as being “…really misogynistic at its core.”. Like I said earlier, Jordan was very obsessed with defined gender roles, but I would like to understand how someone can see it as a series that is based on hating women.
The Astreiant books (Point of Hopes, Point of Knives, Point of Dreams, Fairs Point) by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett are interesting for how they handle this. The setting is a fantasy city not entirely unlike late-mediaeval Bruges, but astrology is powerful and detailed and works.
What jobs people are successful at is determined by their stars, and there are correlations between this and sex, but they are regarded as only correlations; it’s your stars that matter. So, bankers and shopkeepers (‘the stable professions’) are more likely to be female; traders are more likely to be male. The military is male-dominated; the government is female-dominated.
There’s also no or almost no concern about sexual orientation. One of the viewpoint characters is bi and the other is gay, and it’s never even slightly an issue. That’s quite unusual in YA fiction, and also in Melissa Scott’s writing, where sexual orientation is often important to the plot.
While many people have other problems with Stephen Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant series, the society of the Land seems to be very gender equal. IIRC the Warguard sees nothing wrong with female soldiers, and there are quite a few female Lords. The Ramen and the Giants seem to be that way too. I think it’s only the Bloodguard/Haruchai who have a strict gender roles.
@41: Someone else already brought up some of the main problems. So many women characters shown as “strong” only to be constantly losing to, being shown up by, or conveniently prophetically love-owned by men. Male characters were constantly talking about and treating the female ones with disdain and petty annoyance. The narrative is exploitative and cruel to female characters in ways that it never is to the men. Rand’s polyamory being excused by prophesy makes me gag. For just how much time Robert Jordan spent in a world that talked a whole bunch about gender, his worldbuilding treated women’s humanity incredibly shallowly. Incredibly. Whatever your definition of “hate” is that you’re getting hung up on there, denying the full humanity of a class of person sure looks close enough as makes no difference. The shoe fits. It doesn’t take a sworn-enemy level of rage and a focused vendetta to be misogyny. It just takes viewing and/or treating women badly. WoT does that.
@44
Thanks Rune. The reason why I used the word hate is because I went and looked up the definition of misogyny as it is one of those buzzwords that is thrown around ALL THE TIME and I think that many folks think it means something that it doesnt, so I wanted to be clear.
noun 1. hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women, or prejudice against women.
Now I should make it clear at this point that I am a man(maybe it doesn’t matter, but in this case it might be relevant). While I do see that some characters have plot armor so thick that one is never truly worried about their continued existence, I do have one issue with your comment:
“Male characters were constantly talking about and treating the female ones with disdain and petty annoyance.”
Ummm…not sure if you have ever read the Wheel of Time, but this is a pretty shallow thing to say, unless you literally skipped over every single female POV in the entire series. I would even go so far as to say Jordan’s theme throughout the entire series is that if women and men just treated each other as people and ignored the cultural expectations around them, that it would resolve a significant amount of conflict in our world. Maybe as a man I just notice the women treating the men with the petty annoyance and disdain you seem to only see from the men. So I think I will have to agree to disagree with you on that one.
“The narrative is exploitative and cruel to female characters in ways that it never is to the men.”
You know, maybe there is a nice article out there that can sum this attitude up for me. I have seen cruelty and exploitation happening to both men and women throughout the entire series. Since I am a net-new WoT reader, maybe this will come to me in subsequent re reads, but I would like to understand this better.
“Rand’s polyamory being excused by prophesy makes me gag.”
Now this I can kind of agree with. I haven’t seen quite how this ends up(just started book 9), but so far I have seen only consensual contact between Rand and the 3 ladies he has been with. In fact, the women have initiated, and some might even say goaded Rand into bed with them. Obviously they did not rape him, and as an adult he can not be completely absolved of responsibility. What I am seeing now is that Aviendha and Elayne have made the conscious choice to pursue Rand together, as sisters. I really don’t see how 2 women choosing to be sister-wives is misogynistic, other than it might show that Jordan had a secret fantasy to have 2 women actively pursue him together. Admittedly propping it up in terms of Min’s viewings isn’t exactly fool-proof and is kind of patronizing(as a reader), I will need a bit more explanation here.
“For just how much time Robert Jordan spent in a world that talked a whole bunch about gender, his worldbuilding treated women’s humanity incredibly shallowly. Incredibly.”
Again, this seems like a fairly well developed opinion, and I am sure that someone somewhere has explained this in greater detail(maybe you could provide a link?). I have found that the depth of his characters is amazing, and that his exploration of the relationships between characters to be nauseating in its level of detail.
If you can provide links to someone that has actually performed a detailed analysis on WoT indicating the issues you describe, please do!
@45
So, you carefully look up the definition, and then because you don’t like the fact that the term “misogyny” is being used, you deliberately pick the most vehement form of the word as the only one worth talking about. The Wheel of Time has a huge amount of dislike, mistrust and prejudice against women. To be fair, the characters don’t tend to show quite so much of all those to the “average” woman as they do to men like Rand who can use magic. But on the whole, women are (at best) mistrusted far more than men.
Oh!!!! You know, saying it’s a “pretty shallow thing to say” is a pretty shallow thing to say… It’s one readers opinion (well, at least two, since I totally agree with it), but it’s not at all shallow.
Gag me! How can portraying male fantasy stereotypes ever be considered to be empowering women?
@13
All SF is fantasy! :-) [but no, it doesn’t belong in this categorization]
Hi Auspex,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I realize now that this isn’t exactly the best forum for this discussion, as there are a great many places on the internet where the debate rages on about the supposed sexist nature of the WoT. There is also a lot of places that discuss sister-wives and how that works in the real world.
As you said, this was one readers opinion(and yours as well). I was trying to say that the women treat the men(and view the men) as badly as the men view the women(and treat the women), and so to say that it is shallow to not take into account how the women treat the men was inappropriate in this venue.
As a side note, I am mostly concerned about this as an aspiring writer who hopes to avoid having my work interpreted in this way.
I’m not against Gender equality – far from it! – but the sexual division of labor and privilege didn’t just pop out of nowhere, nor was it invented by EVILLLLL MEN to keep women down. Unfortunately there are logical reasons for categorizing women primarily as reproducers and rearers of children in pre-industrial societies and in said societies it tends to be a laborious and full time job. Life was short and hard and maintaining population numbers was a serious concern.
@49/Roxana: Rearing children wasn’t a full time job, and was often left to older children, at least partially. Women also did a lot of housework and work in the fields. And anyway, none of that automatically implies a lower social rank.
@11, @13, @47
Regardless of whether Left Hand of Darkness is sf or fantasy*, the society it portrays is not “gender equal,” as the characters do not have, in human terms, “gender,” unless they’re in breeding status, kemmer. Interestingly, the story does have gender-related social concerns, the most prominent being that people who are always in breeding status are considered perverts. The Genly Ai and his sources had concluded that the people of Winter were the result of an experiment to see how a society without fixed male and female roles would develop.
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* In my opinion, sf and fantasy are two ends of a continuum, not something which has a sharp, perfectly defined boundary. I consider Left Hand of Darkness and Ursula K Leguin’s other Hainish cycle novels on the sf end of the continuum,
@49. The advantage of being a fantasy writer is that you can always change whatever factor it is that you think led to gender inequality IRL – a magical herb that significantly reduces infant mortality for example.
@50: you’re right. It’s just plain weird how cross culturally whatever became categorized as ‘womens work’ was automatically less valued than ‘mans work’ whatever that was. Why that is I just don’t know but you see it over and over again.
@52: yes, exactly my point. Your world building has to explain WHY this society developed in gender neutral ways. Reduced danger of child mortality would be one such explanation.
An idea that just occurred to me would be a much longer lifespan combined with a much shorter ‘old age’ period. Men and women alike would dedicate twenty or so years to their family duties then either start or resume their economic or public careers. This would probably require a family structure including both child-rearers and providers, possibly multigenerational.