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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37210
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

> how can I write a male-dominated culture without implicitly supporting it?

Why do you think you're implicitly supporting it, to begin with? Many fantasy stories (too many to list) include killing and pillaging. A lot of them include religious fanaticism, and it's not always presented as a bad thing. You can have not a single female character that ever achieves anything, and all of those that try to fail, with the story, seemingly validating inequality, and you would still not be supporting inequality.

The fact of the matter is that writing about a topic doesn't somehow mean you support or condone it. In fact, many books are set in settings or feature protagonists that epitomize _what the author does not support_ so as to clearly show the problems. The Great Gatsby is one example. Animal Farm and Brave New World are others.

If you're saying that what I've said doesn't really apply to historical fiction - why, the only defence you need in the case of historical fiction is a history book. "This is what things were like back then - I'm not supporting it, just telling it like it was." Did the writers of HBO: Rome support slavery? No, but it was a fact of life back then, so showing military slaves and gladiators simply added to the atmosphere.

I understand that this last section is slightly tangential, but I thought you might be mixing up _writing about_ a society as _endorsing_ that society. You're not part of that society, you've never experienced that society, and you're fundamentally a writer using a fascinating setting as a basis for your work. Just because you think that Medieval France, Imperial Rome, or Ancient China are fascinating settings to work in _doesn't_ mean you agree with their policies and social reality - but it does, more or less, give you a blank cheque to write about their social reality, _because that is the setting you're working in._ Saying that you can't use parts of the setting would be like saying you couldn't write a book in a hypothetical public-domain Star Wars setting that includes Darth Vader.

Original score: 1