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I did a little thought experiment on myself while reading Andre Norton's Uncharted Stars, where I mentally rewrote the two secondary characters (Ryzk and Zilwrich) as female. There was no plot requirement for those people to be male, so why not? That one change improved the book immeasurably.
I think I'm going to start applying that technique to other Norton books (and what the hell, probably to any classic sci-fi and fantasy I read or reread). It really does drive home how the absence of women is as much a problem as bad depictions of women, you know? *sigh*
Changing Zilwrich's gender required no rewrites whatsoever: injured alien archaeologist is not a gendered plot role. I think if Ryzk had been written as female from the start, their introduction scene would need to be slightly altered because a drunk woman alone in a seedy bar is a different vibe from a drunk man alone in a seedy bar... but hey, maybe that would make the scene in question a bit less morally iffy! (If you wanted to be more drastic in the rewriting, it could result in two secondary characters -- Ryzk and a companion -- that could heighten some later tension in terms of divisions of opinion among the spaceship crew, but that's a more ambitious proposition.) Other than that, literally nothing that needed to be changed to make Ryzk a completely reasonable depiction of a woman, because there was nothing particularly gendered about that depiction in the first place aside from pronouns and that bar scene.
I now kind of want to reread the book and swap some background characters as well. Let's have female shady gem dealers! Female space pirates! Female squid-crustacean aliens who communicate via gesture-to-sound interfaces! Female hardscrabble ice planet merchants who've been dreaming of recreating a legendary trade their parent made! Etcetera.
I have, over the years, become more and more committed to the idea that unless there's a pressing plot or character reason for a character to be male, they should be female by default. (Cis and trans both welcome!)
I have been thinking this past year or so that nonbinary is also a good option. I need to start making random characters nonbinary as well -- this is a little trickier, particularly when working in somebody else's sandbox that has gender assumptions pre-installed, but challenge is good for the soul, yeah?
...
Anyway, bed now. :)
I think I'm going to start applying that technique to other Norton books (and what the hell, probably to any classic sci-fi and fantasy I read or reread). It really does drive home how the absence of women is as much a problem as bad depictions of women, you know? *sigh*
Changing Zilwrich's gender required no rewrites whatsoever: injured alien archaeologist is not a gendered plot role. I think if Ryzk had been written as female from the start, their introduction scene would need to be slightly altered because a drunk woman alone in a seedy bar is a different vibe from a drunk man alone in a seedy bar... but hey, maybe that would make the scene in question a bit less morally iffy! (If you wanted to be more drastic in the rewriting, it could result in two secondary characters -- Ryzk and a companion -- that could heighten some later tension in terms of divisions of opinion among the spaceship crew, but that's a more ambitious proposition.) Other than that, literally nothing that needed to be changed to make Ryzk a completely reasonable depiction of a woman, because there was nothing particularly gendered about that depiction in the first place aside from pronouns and that bar scene.
I now kind of want to reread the book and swap some background characters as well. Let's have female shady gem dealers! Female space pirates! Female squid-crustacean aliens who communicate via gesture-to-sound interfaces! Female hardscrabble ice planet merchants who've been dreaming of recreating a legendary trade their parent made! Etcetera.
I have, over the years, become more and more committed to the idea that unless there's a pressing plot or character reason for a character to be male, they should be female by default. (Cis and trans both welcome!)
I have been thinking this past year or so that nonbinary is also a good option. I need to start making random characters nonbinary as well -- this is a little trickier, particularly when working in somebody else's sandbox that has gender assumptions pre-installed, but challenge is good for the soul, yeah?
...
Anyway, bed now. :)
