im sorry, but goodkind is a female rights activist? i don't think so. seriously, i don't. the only women who get raped in his books are the bad girls, the bullies, the evil witchy types (other than kahalan's sister)
nearly EVERY woman gets raped or is threatened with rape. that certainly isn't 1 in 5 ratio. and it is NOT every 1 in 5 before they're 18 in america or anywhere else! 1 in 5 are a victom of sexual assult fullstop, not before they're 18.
he gives his woman power? uh no. kahalan has power, but what does it do? well when she has sex with men it makes them slaves to her. basically making it impossible for her to have a proper, loving relationship with any guy. the rest of the women in the book are victims of rape and abuse and assult. all it says is goodkind doesn't think women like or should be having sex, because he finds a way to corrupt it at EVERY level
there's the fact he puts rape in where it has NO relevance to the plot (kahalan's sister, for instance)
the fact he shows rape as completely devasting to women, again, kahalan's sister, who gave up the throne after her ordeal. which shows that women can't handle being abused and have to run away and hide after, rather than stand their ground and fight back and go on with their lives
we have the fact that women must have sex with mosnters with barbed falluses to do some magic, so that sex hurts them. cos god forbid it should be nice sex for any of these women.
we have the mord sith, the bondage type women, wearing leather, the main stars of who were a lesbian couple.
AND most importantly of all, you have NONE of the rape victims being actual characters. a whole school of girls are raped and taken prisoner, and NONE of them are nice girls (they're all bullies) and NONE of them exist as characters.
that doesn't show you the horror of rape. that shows you nothing. it makes the rapists out to be evil monsters, not humanbeings, which they are. and the women out to be people for who sex is always bad, and if they're naughty, they will be punished with it.
goodkind is NOT a female activist. none of his women are strong. he uses sex as a weapon to HURt his female characters. none of them are independant, sexual creatures in their own right. they're all messed up and controlled by sex.
david gemmell, he had a girl gang raped in his quest for lost heroes. he showed exactly how she felt abotu it, how she wondered about how these men could hurt her when they'd been good to her as a child. That shows the horror of rape. THAT shows her position and the lack of democracy in her life, that her brother could have men do that to her. we saw how SHE felt, so we saw how bad rape was. the way goodkind does it is so shallow and one dimential that all we get is, the men who raped are eeeeeevil and the women who are raped are baaad girls who are being punished. it's sick.
im sorry, but i am a feminist. i AM a female rights activist, and to be told that a man who writes about degrading sexual act for women, who has them raped ALL the time for no reason, with no accuracy invovled, no character development and no real purpose, is also one is offensive to me. because he's not. he can claim he is, to try and hide the misogny, but he's not. and, i've heard that in real life he's told a female fan that she can't possibly understand his work because she's female. that's not a female rights activist thing to say.
so yeah. he isn't for women's rights. he's a pervy, plain and simple. he likes to degrade and hurt women.
AND selling lots of books doesn't make you a good writer! the kid who wrote eragon sold lots, he had a movie, he's not a good writer either. populartiy doesn't = talent. just look at the boy/girl bands that do so well. they sell TONNES of records all the time, are they talented? well some of them can sing, but they can't write their own music a lot of the time, or their own songs, and just singing alone isn't what makes you a good musician (cos lots of peoel can sing) so yeah, populartiy is NEVER a sign that someone is a good writer. it's just a sign that lots of people are daft *shrug*
people are sheep, after all. they go with the flock.
