The fantasy genre is full of women. And no, I don't mean men fantasizing about some top-heavy lass pressing her unclad body against theirs. I mean that the fantasy genre, most commonly a vaguely medieval setting with magic and (usually) wizards and dragons, has lots of active heroines. This is especially true of YA (young adult) fantasy.
We've come a long way since covers showed sword-wielding maidens dressed in chain mail bikinis. But some of that ethos is still there. Fantasy heroines are tough. Especially the YA ones, where everyone's a teenager.
Even though the setting is sort-of-medieval, fantasy heroines tend to live in a society that is not at all patriarchal. Women can and do everything the men do, and no one thinks anything of it. Women in these stories may be knights, bishops, ruling queens, shopkeepers, wizards, mayors, and the like. Although real medieval women were much more active than scholars once thought, there is no question that medieval men were given precedence, and that the careers of knight and priest were closed to women.
YA heroines are inevitably smart, skilled, sassy, strong, and ready to save the day. They do not menstruate. They are not wracked by self-doubt. They do not carry themselves cautiously around men, trying to avoid any situation that might result in sexual assault. They do not get all embarrassed around a boy they like, nor do they feel they should agree to the sexual urges of the boy they like. As role models, they have much to offer teenage girls, as the heroines do not assume there are things they just cannot do, and they do not routinely defer to men.
One of the chief ways in which these heroines differ from medieval women is that they are handy with a sword. Medieval women did not wield swords (okay, a few may have, and certainly there are examples of women leading knights into battle, most notably Joan of Arc but sword-fighting was just not an option). Sword-fighting requires both upper-body strength and lots of training. Even the unusual medieval woman with more upper-body strength than most men would not have been offered the training. Even in the much more egalitarian modern period, women do not play major league baseball, for the same combination of reasons.
Interestingly, male characters in YA fantasy are much more likely to be wracked by self-doubt than are the female ones. They wonder if they will have the strength or skill to do what needs to be done, they feel the weight of the expectations put on them, and they are cautious around girls if thoughts of sex enter their minds at all, which it does surprisingly rarely. And no wonder. If they tried an unwelcome move on a fantasy heroine, they know for a fact she'd run them through with her sword.
Recently I've realized that my own YA fantasy heroines do not conform to the modern norm. Antonia, heroine of my "Starlight Raven" series, is certainly smart and capable, but she lives in a patriarchal society, where it is considered shocking that a girl would want to become a wizard. She has plenty of self-doubts as well as unease around attractive young men. Sure, she gets to save the day, but without the sassiness or ready confidence of many a fantasy heroine.
Am I being more realistic about what teenage girls are like? Kind of hard to talk about "realism" in a story that has magic and dragons. Is she more like what I was like as a teenager? Probably. It's interesting that the strongest, sassiest, quickest-with-a-sword fantasy heroines are most freuently written by men.
© C. Dale Brittain 2024
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