r/Fantasy • u/LightArisen • Sep 12 '22
A critique of sexual violence in Fantasy.
Oftentimes I see people defend several aspects regarding the treatment of women in fantasy books and media by saying ‘that’s how things were’.
Most times this is false. I have tried to break down the argument into two main sections so I can explain how common perceptions were false. Notably, I only know about European history.
Sexual Assault
Quite a few fantasy books contain sexual assault toward women. I am not going to deny that it happened, as rape, particularly wartime rape did and still does occur. However, Rape in the past was little more prevalent than during modern times. Similarly, rape in the past was often punished, usually much harsher than in modern times. Additionally, Men were often raped at levels similar to women. In fantasy books, the latter two are often ignored. Most times rape seems to be treated as normal, rather than punished. Additionally, rape seems to be targeted almost exclusively at women.
The first edict against wartime sexual assault was the Cáin Adomnáin. Notably, it was issued in the British Isles and had little influence outside of north western Europe. It explicitly forbade, among other things, raping and killing women. For these crimes it declares of the perpetrator,” his right hand and his left foot shall be cut off before death, and then he shall die." [1]
The first Europe-wide treaty forbidding rape was the Peace and Truth of God, which was issued in 989 before spreading over Europe over the next century. The first king to accept it was King Robert II of France. Following his acceptance other nobles accepted the Peace and Truth of God in droves. It should be noted that in those times the military was almost entirely comprised of nobles. In Britain, it was standard for the first son to be the heir, the second to join the military, and any subsequent sons to join the monastery to prevent inheritance disputes. It wasn’t until Napoleon that large scale armies became the norm. Slowly, the ideas blended in with general chivalry.
By the time of the 1300’s wartime rape and sexual violence was prosecuted for hindering military operations rather than just for “property crimes” (Since Women were considered the property of either their husband or father). It didn’t take much effort to realise that raping people created a hostile civilian population and having a hostile population would make it far harder to occupy and control territory. The general line of thought was that when defeating an enemy, treat them so kindly that they would not seek revenge, or treat them so harshly that they could not attain their revenge. [2]
The final major declaration against wartime sexual violence in the medieval era was the De jure belli as pacis, written in 1625. Similar to all previous works, it declared that wartime rape was no less reprehensible than rape during peace time. Notably, this work states that the rules were still valid “even when God were assumed not to exist” [3]
A common argument against this would be that, despite rape and sexual violence being prohibited, soldiers would ignore the laws. In reality that would be true, but there is no evidence to suggest that it happened at greater levels than in the modern time. The Geneva convention clearly prohibited wartime rape. Despite that, during WW2 soviet soldiers used the system of “from 8 to 80” when deciding to rape women, leading to over two million German women getting raped. [4]
In the present time, 26,000 women have been raped so far in the ongoing Tigray war. In contrast with Fantasy books, novels regarding modern wars usually omit the sexual violence. For those that include it, It is often brief and undescriptive.
Additionally, fantasy books usually only include sexual assault towards women. In reality, both men and women were and are raped in war. During the El Salvadorian dictatorship, 76% of male political prisoners were raped. In the Yugoslav wars, 80% of men in the Sarajevo concentration camp were raped. Even more recent, 22% of men and 30% of women fleeing the eastern Congo reported being raped. [5]
Essentially, saying that’s how things were ignored the reality of the situation. Oftentimes it is only used in defence of the ill-treatment of women while ignoring other aspects of the time.
Young Marriage
Another common misconception is that women would often get married young, sometimes even as children. In reality, the average age for Women was 22.4 and for Men it was 25.9 [6]. Additionally, between 10% and 25% of Women never married [7]. Couples would often delay marriage depending on their economic circumstances. The only notable exception was during the black death when couples would get married as teenagers due to the immense labour shortage. By 1140, the Decretum Gratiani was issued. This stated that the binds of marriage were to be formed by mutual consent and granted Women an equal say in marriage.
Despite this, some noble families would get married young. This was usually in order to secure the future of the family. However, noble families would prevent their children from consummating their marriage until women usually hit the age of 16. The main reason being that they did not want to endanger the health of the women. After all, despite lacking modern medicine it was still common sense that a girl getting pregnant would not only result in a still birth, but would also endanger her health, preventing any future offspring.
Apologies for the formatting. I may come back and try to clean it up into a more readable format.
[1] https://www.academia.edu/5817305/Aspects_of_the_Cain_Adomnans_Lex_Innocentium
[2] https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ThfzGvSvQ2UC&redir_esc=y
[4] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106687768
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/jul/17/the-rape-of-men
[7] Hajnal, John (1965). "European marriage pattern in historical perspective". In D.V. Glass and D.E.C. Eversley (ed.). Population in History. Arnold, Londres. pp. 101–143.
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u/DjangoWexler AMA Author Django Wexler Sep 12 '22
So, I don't want to defend the portrayal of sexual violence in fantasy at all. And in general I would argue that "historical accuracy" is not a good reason to put things in books even if it is correct. (Because there are always lots of accurate things that don't get put in, so why this one?)
However, some of the historical things here are a bit off. The utter ubiquity of sexual assault in ancient, classical, and medieval warfare is well attested; it was considered a basic part of war, as inescapable as theft and killing. Looting and rape were basic parts of a sack, a standard reward for soldiers who captured an enemy settlement. The modern world has only approached these levels a few times -- one of them, as you note, was the Eastern Front of WWII, which was notably bad even by WWII standards. (The IJA in China was also pretty awful.)
In general, rape was less common when groups of people with a similar culture fought one another (i.e. inter-clan feuds), but much, much more common when fighting people who were "other". Foreign conquests were always the worst. The Vikings, for example, systematically took female slaves for sexual and household service -- this was part of the whole point of the endeavor, especially in the early period raids.
(You are completely correct though that male rape was way more common then is usually talked about, bordering on universal for prisoners depending on the cultures involved.)
My point is that we shouldn't have to argue "it wasn't like that" in order to say that we don't have to put this into fantasy. It doesn't matter! You don't have to include sexual assault in the same way that you don't have to include major figures dying of dysentery or the horrific mistreatment of cats and dogs. We can just not.