gnatsaredancing t1_jdq4z93 wrote
It's called tunnel vision. I'm a 41 year old life long voracious reader and I've never read a book that featured notable violence against women.
I bet if I tried, I could read nothing but books that feature violence against women, or heinous racism or people who owned dogs though. And then pretend like it's a defining trend for books.
People tend to take note of the things they want to take note of.
Superb_Tiger_8376 t1_jdqboqb wrote
I can name only two popular fantasy books I have read without sexual violence against women. Some time ago someone in the fantasy reddit asked for a book without sexual violence and many people recommended books that in hindsight turned out in fact have sexual violence.
Generic-username_123 t1_jdx4u4f wrote
True, especially the part that you could read nothing but books that feature violence against women or heinous racism. There seems to be an endless supply of them. In part because it has become popular to explore these horrible experiences in hopes to prevent them. That said, it is also way to define one group of people as bad and another as good; oppressors and the oppressed. The problem is it becomes easy to get stereotype all people of a certain group as oppressors. It is typecasting and no better than the awful typecasting of the past when blacks in film and TV were usually depicted as criminals or pimps and women as nagging housewives. Every identity should be able to see positive depictions of their identity in books, films and television.
I find such violence against women or people of different races abhorrent and prefer not to read fiction or watch media that includes such depictions. You would think this material would appeal most to misogynists or racists, but it often appeals to people who like seeing their identity harmed because of what it says about the group doing the harming. This can be unifying because it creates a common enemy according to Professor Jonathan Haidt.
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