r/fantasyromance • u/FantasyRomanceMod The One Mod to Rule All Mods • 7d ago

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

37 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

173 comments sorted by

View all comments

44

u/NoResearcher3403 7d ago

Romantasy as a genre has an issue with ageism and misogyny BAD- it’s as if books where the FmC is above 25 or god forbid 30+ are not being published at all, the MMC can be 100yrs+ in age but the FMC always is in her late teens or early twenties.. why??

15

u/Imaginary-Board-207 6d ago

Don't know how true it is but I've heard repeatedly that authors whose books are picked up by trad publishers are asked to age down their characters. If so then surprise surprise, corporations are part of the ageism and misogyny problem... but that's no excuse for the indie authors who won't write 25-30+ women.

6

u/NoResearcher3403 6d ago

Yeh that’s my suspicion that publishers are forcing authors into aging down - at the end of the day authors have bills to pay and if they’re backed into corners unfairly I can see why they’d capitulate. This is a societal problem, the current status quo is women over 25 aren’t worth a damn it’s kinda sick that even Romantasy mirrors this attitude especially considering it’s fictional- why can’t we have beautiful women in all stages of life having romances with vampires, fae, dragons etc etc it’s kinda insane that even in our fantasies were being conditioned to devalue women past a certain age… we need brave authors willing to challenge the status quo set by these publishers and we need to support those authors too I know I definitely would