[dustinzgirl]

Really long and rambling stuff.

Less than two hundred years ago it was legal for a husband to spank his wife in Brittain. Women in America could not own land, vote, or as far as I understand it be divorced. In many countries that are not westernized, women are subservient to thier husbands. Heck, I know women in modern America that are subservient. I think that to understand the women in these books, you really have to remove the modern feminism ideals. I'm not saying that is how it should be, I'm just saying thats how it is in some cultures. I think these women did miraculous things by going against traditions and forging thier own status as leaders, particularily Egwene. Not all cultures value women of independent thought, and if you look--really look--at the culture created in Wheel, its very akin to ancient English practices where the majority of women were pretty, soft, and malleable. In 1920's America, the only reason women went to school was to learn how to be a lady, women didn't go to college, they went to finishing school.

I think its rather sad that people would expect the women in books to all be Red Sonja's. Not all women are. Not all women WANT to be. I think the women were written at a time where the cusp of power was being changed, in as much as women who marched to allow voting in America were both leaders of other women and wives to thier men, except perhaps those crazy fem extremists.

So you have women who were raised to be farmer wives rather than independent women suddenly being thrust into the male dominated world of war and violence and espionage. Since we can pretty much say this hasn't really happened in westernized nations for a long while, its hard to say exactly how the women would react. I know I whine a lot when I have to do things I really don't want to do--for example, if I have to take out the trash (men's job in my house) I will complain about it, just as if my man has to cook dinner (by that I mean order pizza) he will complain about it because its different than the way we expect things to be.


Oh, and at least these women got off thier butts and worked hard to do what they felt they were responsible for, Mat and Rand and Perrin all tried to run from thier responsibilities. Why don't we make a thread about what a crybaby Mat is or what a pansy Rand is or what a selfish shirker Perin is?

PS: As for Siuan being a big whiner, um---how many men could handle losing all thier money, power, and prestige? Anyone have the stock broker suicide statistics from the Great Depression?

Seriously.

PPS: Faery, you know, the women in Wheel were going against everything they had been raised to be to fight in the war of all wars. That takes a lot more guts than most women I know could possibly ever have. For example, do you think that you could give up all your traditions and become a subservient wife and walk two steps behind your husband like the traditional Chinese sometimes still do? Probably not, that would take a LOT of commitment. Similarily, you would not expect a woman raised to be a subservient obedient wife to suddenly work in construction and raise her family as a single mother, that takes a lot of commitment also. Not saying either never happens, but it takes a certain kind of strength to be that kind of women (or man) and do the unexpected while still honoring how you were raised.