Came across this interesting post by Daniel Abraham (writing as M. L. N. Hanover) regarding urban fantasy titled "Why Jayne Heller Won't Get Raped."
Here's an excerpt:
I think — as I’ve said elsewhere — that urban fantasy is a genre sitting on top of a great big huge cultural discomfort about women and power. The typical UF heroine (as I’ve come to understand her) is a kick-ass woman with a variety of possible lovers. She’s been forced into power which she often doesn’t understand, and can face down any danger while at the same time captivating the romantic attention of the dangerous, edgy men around her. She’s been forced into power — either through accident of birth or by being transformed without her permission — and is therefore innocent of one of the central feminine cultural sins: ambition. She is in relationships primarily with men rather than in community with women. “Bad boys” want her, and they won’t be bad to her. Etc, etc, etc.
The thing that sets almost (and there are exceptions I’ll talk about in a minute here) all the urban fantasy heroines apart from real women as found in the real world is this: they don’t fear rape.
I understand and sympathize with them. As a man, I don’t fear rape either. I understand intellectually that I could be a victim of it, but it just doesn’t seem plausible. It doesn’t impinge on my consciousness the way that it does for women. And so — while urban fantasy embodies so many of the insecurities about women and power — here, it falls into real fantasy. They’re immune to traditional masculine power (that’s to say violence) because they have internalized it. They’ve become it. Urban Fantasy heroines are — for the most part — weaponized.
Click on this link to read the entire article.
Here's an excerpt:
I think — as I’ve said elsewhere — that urban fantasy is a genre sitting on top of a great big huge cultural discomfort about women and power. The typical UF heroine (as I’ve come to understand her) is a kick-ass woman with a variety of possible lovers. She’s been forced into power which she often doesn’t understand, and can face down any danger while at the same time captivating the romantic attention of the dangerous, edgy men around her. She’s been forced into power — either through accident of birth or by being transformed without her permission — and is therefore innocent of one of the central feminine cultural sins: ambition. She is in relationships primarily with men rather than in community with women. “Bad boys” want her, and they won’t be bad to her. Etc, etc, etc.
The thing that sets almost (and there are exceptions I’ll talk about in a minute here) all the urban fantasy heroines apart from real women as found in the real world is this: they don’t fear rape.
I understand and sympathize with them. As a man, I don’t fear rape either. I understand intellectually that I could be a victim of it, but it just doesn’t seem plausible. It doesn’t impinge on my consciousness the way that it does for women. And so — while urban fantasy embodies so many of the insecurities about women and power — here, it falls into real fantasy. They’re immune to traditional masculine power (that’s to say violence) because they have internalized it. They’ve become it. Urban Fantasy heroines are — for the most part — weaponized.
Click on this link to read the entire article.
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