attackfish

For better or worse, the capacity to do evil is often associated with strength. The current dearth of female villains strikes me as an attempt, on the part of authors of both sexes, to make up for all the years of wicked witches and femmes fatale and dragon ladies, but it's kind of ham-handed. Female characters can be strong these days (strong on their own, not just by manipulating strong male characters into doing things for them) which is a huge improvement to be sure, but their strength must be used in the service of good: a mildly updated version of the Victorian idea of women as inherently pure and saintly. In the real world, there is certainly no lack of examples of powerful women who are every bit as villainous as their male counterparts, and yeah, it would be nice to see this acknowledged better--particularly outside the realm of fairy tales and cartoons aimed primarily at children.

One of the (many, many, many) reasons I keep coming back to Darkover every few years is because MZB's characters are first and foremost people, good and bad in equal measure; their sex may limit what they can do within the context of the culture, but it does not limit who they are. Which, given how she set the world up, is a particularly neat trick, and one from which many other authors could learn a great deal.