Thursday, February 17, 2011

Why Women Don't Read Fantasy [Excerpt]

From page 344 of A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin
Beauty, they called her . . . mocking. The hair beneath the visor was a squirrel's nest of dirty straw, and her face . . . Brienne's eyes were large and very blue, a young girl's eyes, trusting and guileless, but the rest . . . her features were broad and coarse, her teeth prominent and crooked, her moth too wide, her lips so plump they seemed swollen. A thousand freckles speckled her cheeks and brow, and her nose had been broken more than once. Pity filled Catelyn's heart. Is there any creature on earth as unfortunate as an ugly woman?
 Italics are from the text.

This Brienne woman is badass: she is basically the equal, if not the better, to most men in battle. But she fails in being beautiful. And therefore is to be pitied. I almost threw the book when I read that part.

It reminded me of when someone wrote on a Huffington Post blog this of Elena Kagan's mother's reaction to her daughter becoming the first female dean of Harvard Law School:

She nodded, unsmiling, and sighed in that stoic way that was now so familiar to me. "Yeah..." then a long silence..."but I really wish she were married."
Never mind her other accomplishments...How is she doing with the menfolk?

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