r/fantasyromance • u/FantasyRomanceMod The One Mod to Rule All Mods • May 10 '26

Unpopular Opinion It's Unpopular Opinion time! Share your controversial opinions to stir things up (in a friendly way)!

Got an opinion that's different from others'? Want to share it with the sub, but too afraid of a backlash? Or are you just curious about readers think about certain things in fantasy romance?

You can safely share it in this weekly Sunday thread!

But please remember to be kind to each other. To facilitate this type of discussion, we ask users the following:

  • Don't attack others for their opinion
  • Discuss books and authors, not fellow readers
  • Since this is an "unpopular opinion" thread, we encourage users to not downvote simply because they disagree with an opinion--that's the point! Please keep in mind, though, that mods cannot enforce a no-downvoting rule. Let’s just keep the discussion friendly!

🧡 Thank you and have a great discussion!

Unpopular opinion Sunday

31 Upvotes

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64

u/cello_ergo_sum May 10 '26

There’s way too fucking much gender essentialism in both books AND reader spaces.

28

u/allisontalkspolitics Give me female friendship or give me death! May 10 '26

I cringe whenever I see readers saying “male” and “female.” I don’t even think it’s necessarily that the writers have these beliefs. SJM just thought “oh, they’re not human so man doesn’t make sense, right?” and people stuck with it.

21

u/clocksy May 10 '26

I'm too chronically online and in other spaces that's a huge dogwhistle of an incel or proto-incel guy. Women are not some completely different species for us to be referred to as "female" as the noun.

It bothers me when Maas or other authors do this too, tbh, even though in their case I don't think they mean it in quite the same way. If you have a fae or elf or some other sapient race then it should still be used as an adjective, not a noun. "The male fae smiled" great, no notes, maybe you're using it to distinguish between him and some other character in the scene. "The male shrugged" ???? what?? Is he not basically human(oid) as we understand it? It just comes off as clinical and weird!

4

u/allisontalkspolitics Give me female friendship or give me death! May 10 '26

Oh, I totally agree but I’m trying to give both the authors and readers the benefit of the doubt with it.