You know another thing I love about Anne Bishop's books?
I love the role reversals. Men are stigmatized by rape, an attempt at rape, or the accusation of rape--INSTEAD OF WOMEN, THE VICTIMS. Women are viewed as the more stable gender; men are the ones who are in the position of 'overemotional' and 'hysterical.' Which is funny because it is a reversal of the way our society views us, but the behavior is not at all unrealistic for our culture, just amplified by magical excuses the way scientists put a microscope over bacteria.
Look at this. Think about it. Women are the providers and protectors, not men. Men are in the social position of 'tempering' the women (this isn't as explicit as other reversals, but Falonar tells Surreal 'yeah, we do the grunt work because you guys are SO MUCH SCARIER when you get pissed off' and that draws parallels to the gendered views of parenting--the mother manages most of it and the father does the discipline.) The very way the story is told is a reversal in its own way; it's the story of the men only inasmuch as it is the story of how Jaenelle affects their lives.
Yes, we have Terreille, where there's the flip side to that--the negative one--but we also have decent male rulers in our world, and downright evil ones. It's reality, cast into fictionalized relief, emphasized by the support of the magic and manipulation to throw it into bold unignorable prominence.
I really, really loved her handling of the rut. Especially since I read a lot of supernatural stories, and even the ones that aren't romance novels screw this up consistently. Yes, she says, men have lusts, sure, and powerful physical urges, blah blah blah.
But this does not even begin to make it okay. No, not even when it's all magical and shit! Considering that's a particularly rage inducing and deeply ingrained misogynistic part of our culture, that was beautiful to read.
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