Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week I will make a list of 10 books, authors or other bookish things surrounding a certain topic. This week, I chose to talk about the books that really need some more women in them. Honestly.
Edit: I have now realized this actually was supposed to go up next week. Oops. I’ll write about the “visuals” topic of this week, next week then.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien // I love this man’s stories, but I can admit fault in my favorite books too. Tolkien wrote far too little women, and far too little powerful and strong women.Â
Snakewood by Adrian Selby // Another fantasy book that could’ve used some more incredible assassin-women. This is about a band of assassins that split up and is now being killed one by one. I love me some assassins, but I especially love female assassins. So sad there weren’t really many in this story!
The Secret History by Donna Tartt // I feel like Camilla is really the only prominent woman here. Not only are there few women here, but Camilla is a dependent girl -and in my opinion, not the strongest of them all. I’m not saying that every woman in a book should be a strong, independent, fiery one. That’s not realistic either. Yet I feel like there could’ve been more women in general, here.
The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastards #1) by Scott Lynch // Again, a series I absolutely adore. But with a sore lack of women. The women that are here though, are powerful and smart ones. So I do admire Scott Lynch for that.Â
The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) by Brandon Sanderson // This series does have a few women, but Vin is really the only main character in the band of thieves who is female. So another fantasy one, with a lacking amount of women in it (in my opinion, of course).
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien // Another Tolkien, another lack of women. Sigh.
The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicles #1) by Patrick Rothfuss //Â Yes, I do know that I have raved about this book. I do love it. But there is again a lack of women here. There’s really only one prominent female character, and I really didn’t like her.Â
A little more than 50% or so of the world’s population is female. And yet, we can’t seem to hold a balance of representation in books. Especially fantasy.
The Fictional Reader 
Yes, and it is even more often to see women being represented as the ones needed to be rescued. We do see more and more powerful women these days, but when the modern effort still has not widely spread the intended message of empowerment, it just shows how deeply rooted the prejudice has been… well, even though these book cannot be rewritten, hopefully there will be authors attempting to write a different side of those books with stronger female characters 😀
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Exactly!
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I have never read any of these books but I love the topic you’ve chosen this week!
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/top-ten-tuesday-94/
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Thanks!
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Hi! Haha, I’m so glad someone else has done this 🙂 Twice I have read the dates wrong and written the wrong post! I don’t read much fantasy, but there can never be enough strong female characters! 🙂
My TTT
Leslie
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Ha, happens to the best of us 😀 Very true!
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I agree with you! But as to your final statement, the representation balance in books is so dependent on genre – even in fantasy, I notice we often leave out mention for the incredible work YA authors have done filling their works with strong kick-ass female characters. In fact, that is becoming the standard. Adult fantasy though, yeah, still needs work.
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Thanks! You’re right, I’m going to adapt my statement. There have been quite some kick-ass ladies in YA fantasy. It’s more the adult fantasy genre that needs a nudge. Thanks for making me aware of the fault in my statement 😀
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I think that was the only thing I faulted Mistborn with, that Vin was pretty much the ONLY woman worth rooting for throughout the whole venture (oh, a-ha, I see what I did there). I did love the other lady Mistborn of the first book. She was also badass, though on the wrong side of the battle…
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Haha, venture 😀 Very true. Although from what I remember, she doesn’t get that much coverage, right? Or maybe I have just forgotten it all…
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Yeah, you’re right, she didn’t get much coverage. The lady only stood out at the end because she went from being a minor annoyance to a “oh what. THAT happens. Okay yes!”
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I’m always nervous I’ll post the wrong TTT, I’m constantly double checking. I actually chose kind of a similar topic for next week. I appreciate your willingness to point out shortcomings of your favorite books even if you loved them.
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Ha, happens to us all 😀 That’s what a busy week gets you, I guess. Too tired to read the date correctly! Thanks. I firmly believe in admitting that nothing is perfect, no matter how much I love it 😀
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I absolutely love Lord of the Rings but I do agree that it could have used more women in it. I loved Eowyn but it’d be nice to have more female representation in Middle-Earth.
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Exactly. I do love it too. I just think that having only Eowyn, Arwen en Galadriel is kind of sad 😦
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Nice topic!! Yes, more strong women are needed in books!!
Here’s a link to my TTT post for this week:
https://captivatedreader.blogspot.com/2017/01/top-ten-tuesday-top-eleven-coffee-table.html
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Thank you! 😀
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You make lots of great points. I’d love to see more great women in Locke Lamora.
Lauren @ Always Me
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Thanks! 😀
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Yes to Lord of the Rings. Yes to the Hobbit. Yes to Kingkiller. Why don’t intricately built epic fantasy worlds enjoy strong women? Gah. I’d make an argument for Eowyn or Devi, maybe… but that’s it.
Great list!
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I don’t get it either! Eowyn is indeed a point of argument. But then again, that’s one woman. Add Arwen and Galadriel, and it makes three. In the entirety of Middle Earth.
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Well, there’s a handful of female hobbits (Rosie, etc.) I suppose as well. But then you’re *really* tapped out.
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Love this topic and totally agree!
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Thanks!
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It’s interesting isn’t it, how few women are in Tolkein. CS Lewis, by contrast, has strong women characters. Glad I’m not the only one who noticed that. For the record, I have yet to finish the Hobbit or LOTR. I grew up hearing about them constantly from my obsessed brother and no nephew and soon, I’m sure, great-nephew. Good list!
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You’re completely right! I’d never even thought to compare it with C.S. Lewis’ writing. I hope you’ll give them a shot though, because I do love them 😀 Your brother and nephew are definitely right.
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I have wondered as a guy too, why there aren’t really many females in the Tolkien books and women are really not mentioned all that much in the stories either. I like reading about diverse characters of both sexes and hadn’t really thought about these until your post. Interesting topic!
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Exactly! Thank you 😀 I mean, it’s the entirety of Middle Earth. Where are all the women?
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I must not have read far enough into The Lies of Locke Lamora to get to any female characters. Not a one but admittedly I gave in pretty early. The book just didn’t appeal to me (which came as a surprise). We need more strong women in literature.
http://literaryweaponry.com
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The woman did actually come into the story very late on!
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I’m with you on needing more kick-ass female characters. it’s a shame that Tolkien didn’t add more strong women to his works.
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I couldn’t agree more.
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This is a good list. What’s your opinion on Game of Thrones, Hunger Games and the Divergent Series?
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Game of Thrones, in my opinion, has quite a few strong women. Not only are the Stark women strong, but there is also Cersei, Brienne, Daenerys and the Sand Snakes. As for the Hunger Games and Divergent, both have a women as a main character. And I believe they also had some female friends (in Divergent) and in the Hunger Games, you also had the other female contendor, Johanna. I don’t know, I guess there could always be more, but these three books wouldn’t have come to mind for this list. Especially not Game of Thrones.
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I’d definitely agree that we do need some more kick-ass women in books! 🙂 Love your list this week!
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Thank you so much! 😀
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I kinda agree with the Gentleman Bastards & Kingkiller Chronicle. In my opinion they need likeable female characters. I hate Kvothe’s love interest and Sabetha was super annoying if you ask me 😀
I am okay with the Final Empire as Vin is THE lead character
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Yeees, I hated Kvothe’s love interest too. I kind of liked and disliked Sabetha at the same time…
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I agree about Sabetha. I found her kind of meh. Yes, she was strong and independent but I didn’t really care about her. And I kept wanting to smack Locke upside the head – get over it! Other than that, love the series.
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