Romantasy: The next frontier of feminism, or where feminism goes to die?

The choice is yours.

Since the dawn of modern media, women have been taught to do everything necessary to “win the man,” including tearing down their sisters in arms. We were educated in “beauty is pain, and pain gets you what you want” in films like Ms. Congeniality and The Devil Wears Prada. Songs like Dream’s 2001 hit “He Loves U Not” all the way to Ariana Grande’s 2019 “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored” and beyond have indoctrinated us into the cult of “Tear Down Other Women for Men.” Because the only form of success that is universally recognized, the only badge of honor that is worth having, is that of a woman who has climbed to the top of the dog pile, shouting victoriously over other women’s mutilated bodies, prying the only good man for miles out of someone else’s cold, dead hands.

Morbid? Sure. Accurate? Only if we allow it to continue as it has over the last century.

Until recently, women in our society have been primarily limited to consuming media dictated by men. Need I remind you, these are the same men who reap the benefits of our inward (ourselves) and outward (everyone else) loathing of anything that identifies as feminine. (Hence the chokehold the beauty industry, plastic surgery, cosmetic dermatology, etc., have on all of us – me included.)

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The Rise of Women-Driven Media & Romantasy

Enter the romantasy genre. Over the past ten to twenty years, we have benefited from women writing fantasy books for women. Many (men) are surprised at the “sudden surge” of romantasy. But those of us who’ve been around since the early days of Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, and Nalini Singh know that this is no sudden surge – it’s just a profitable market that men have finally deemed worthy of their attention.

Mind you, this is a profitable market fueled by the hard-earned money of women, many of whom are independent, working women, supporting other women. A profitable market that has persisted, grown, and boomed despite the rigidity of male-defined literary genres and in defiance of the bookshelves categorized by marketing tactics defined by those same men.

Romantasy, as we know it today, is the women’s space. We appreciate the men who appreciate the genre, but at its core, romantasy was created by women, for women. As the genre has grown in popularity and therefore in volume, so too has the breadth and depth of the female main character (henceforth known as the “FMC”). No longer do women have to be reduced to one-dimensional tropes such as the manic-pixie-dream-girl. Gone are the requirements that their only desires be to fulfill the traditional feminine role of marriage, children, and happily-ever-afters (meaning they want all that and more – or none of that and more). We get to celebrate the emergence of powerful women who are hurt and then heal, who fall and then rise, who suffer and then seek glory.

But only if the FMC isn’t too whiny. Or too apathetic. Or too strong. Or too weak. Or too dumb. Or too intelligent.

Discourse on the Women in Romantasy

The discourse around woman-written fantasy, romance, and romantasy and their FMCs and other feminine characters has been, at times, uplifting but mostly disheartening. What I have learned from my place at the fringes of social media is that there is no one more critical of a woman than another woman. However, it is also true that no one can support a woman like another woman. How can these two things be true at once?

Perhaps for the first time in modern history, women are engaging with content created for them by those who understand them, and we don’t know how to handle that. We have not adapted as quickly as the content, the characters, and the stories have evolved in the romantasy genre. Where men have written novels and philosophical texts that have contemplated their existence for centuries, women are just now having the opportunity to explore what it means to be a woman in a society where we can fight for our rights and for how we want to be perceived. We can rail against traditional expectations if we want. We can carve space for an existence that no one can define but ourselves. And we can write / read /speak about it.

But in the face of all that opportunity and the undefined, we retreat into what is comfortable, what the media of our youth taught us to do. We retreat into comparison and criticism. We often resort to belittling and nitpicking. And that is most glaringly evident in the way we discuss FMCs.

Name any book in the romantasy genre, and I bet more than half the women who have read it will complain about the FMC (this is a generalization, and I know it, but go with me). What is it that they do not like about the FMC? She was too naive to realize she had powers; she trusted the wrong person; she was too powerful, which was unbelievable; she complained too much; she cried too much; she was too prudish; she was too willing; and so on. How often are these complaints actual, versus what the character is doing/experiencing is rooted in motivation, trauma, or the character’s learned experience or limited world view?

How often are the FMCs too reflective of someone else we know and refuse to understand?

How often are the flaws we see in the FMCs too reflective of our own?

As readers and authors, we face our internalized misogyny every time we encounter a female character and every time we don’t. If the mother figure is beloved, she’s probably dead, dying, or going to die. If the FMC chooses herself/knowledge/power over having a family, she’s selfish or doesn’t deserve her happy ending. If the FMC has no more character development left or needs to be redeemed in some way, she’ll get pregnant, and we’ll all complain about it. If we don’t like the way the woman’s story ends, we complain about the author. If the story’s not to our standard, we demean the author. If we don’t like something the author said, we bully them off the internet.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Dare I say I think women writing for women didn’t intend for those same women to attack them or their characters. I think (or I hope) we’re all here for the same purpose – for a place to share our interests with other like-minded individuals and where we feel safe to do so.

Feminism’s Next Frontier

There will come a point – and perhaps that point is now – where we will have to make a choice. Do we allow the mindset society ingrained in us to ruin this space we love with the algorithm-dominating clickbait negativity or the gendered criticisms that make us sound like the worst of men? Or perhaps, do we focus our efforts on rewriting the way we think about women and their achievements, reframing the way we discuss women and their flaws, and reimagining the way we support women and the things that bring them joy?

Let me suggest that if we collectively make an effort, we can make romantasy the perfect training ground for the next phase of feminism. It can be a place where we safely confront ourselves and the knee-jerk reactions we have to the women we read about, the women who write the stories we read, and the fans who do or do not like them.

I know from my own experience that learning to approach FMCs and authors with more grace has taught me to approach myself and other women in my life with greater kindness and understanding. Calling out to myself the misogyny I see in books makes me think about where I see it in my own life. Asking how stories could provide a better message about women to other women makes me think seriously about my own actions and the message I send.

I am far from perfect. Old habits die hard. But we are all Valkyries-in-training. If we commit to training consistently, even on the days when it’s hard, one day we might climb Mount Ramiel and beat the men at their own game.

Because the more of us who try, the stronger we can build a sisterhood that supports each other’s growth, holds space for each other’s mistakes, and celebrates each other’s successes with more enthusiasm than men celebrated each other’s sexual conquests in movies from the early 2000s.

Romantasy doesn’t have to be just fantasy; it can be the vehicle that changes our reality.

So, grab your swords and bows, sisters. Today, we train. Tomorrow, we fight for our lives.

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A writer and podcaster with an M.Ed. in Higher Education & a B.A. in Creative Writing, Amy S. Yen deep dives into 90s-00s nostalgia to make up for lost time growing up in China, devours smutty audiobooks on her work commute, and reimagines literary classics into contemporary LGBTQ romance novels.