Should I change the sex of this villian?

@liquidlilium Lili
Wed, 10 Jan 2018 21:26:48 +0000

@liquidlilium wrote:

Maybe I got exposed to it more since I used to read a lot of fairy-tales and other older stories since I was a kid?
Not that it doesn't exist in more contemporary fiction sadly.

Ofc, it's usually not along the lines of "Oh no, her ovaries pumped her full of evil female sex hormones! Now she's a supervillain!"

More something like "Her fragile female brain couldn't deal the pain of a miscarriage, now she's a sinister succubus turning tricks on the streets and murdering babies!" or "A queen leading a nation? She must be a witch fighting the natural order and bringing her kingdom to ruin!"

It's usually more subtle of course and sometimes it's not really an issue of a misogynistic writer but just a really poor one. The miscarriage scenario for example could work without being horribly sexist if the woman doesn't snap because of her "female brain" but because it's simply the last straw after an lifetime of abuse and misfortune.