What kind of an effect does breaking gender roles/stereotypes have in fiction?

Question

Background

It might sound like a silly question, I know, but something someone said to me today has made me concerned that my book sounds childish and nonsensical. Apparently: "having a woman who burns people at the stake, cuts off heads and betrays is too childish for people to take her seriously."

In my book, I've got men with excessively feminine names and attributes as well as plenty of women who are clad in full iron armour and won't hesitate to chop off someone's head. I know that in those times women were (and still are, in some perspectives) discriminated against, would be 'owned' by the husband and definitely not on the front lines during war. I learnt that during history.

I'm scared that because I have so many women who go around cutting open arrows, assassinating kings, and not playing the stereotypical role of a woman in those times my book will appear like it's written by someone negligent.

Question

Does it matter if you break gender stereotypes? Of the present day, or at the 'time your book is set in'.

Do many readers not expect for example, the things I mentioned above? Would they think my writing is childish if I broke stereotypical gender roles?

Answer 1

If you think of your book as a "serious" historical fiction, then your concerns are well-founded. But if you are writing "historical fantasy", you are free to do anything you want, as long as the book is good. You can't make your book serious in the sense of "historically accurate", but I see no problem having it serious as "deep and thought provoking".

Answer 2

People write many less believable things than women with swords and armor or feminine men. Write whatever you want to. No matter what it turns out to be, the real work is creating a seamless, fictional dream that will pull your reader in rather than have them spending half the novel saying "That's unrealistic."

See Writing a novel, can I do [this or that]?

Answer 3

Personally, I would typically view breaking gender stereotypes as a breath of fresh air. What I would not view as a breath of fresh air would be exaggerated, consequence-free actions that kill my suspension of disbelief (unless I was seeking out a surrealistic fantasy or broad comedy).

There is actually a hidden sociopolitical danger in ignoring historical realities when presenting characters. By giving them more agency and power than they actually had, you're both imagining away (and thus excusing) the power structures that kept their real life analogs down, and simultaneously making the real-life historical persons seem weak and complicit in their own oppression. Consider Tarantino's revisionist Western Django Unchained, which features an escaped slave bounty hunter slaughtering white people with happy impunity. It never actually happened. Suggesting it did might be a satisfying revenge fantasy for some, but it both misrepresents and paradoxically excuses the realities of enslavement. Conversely, Octavia Butler's Kindred paints a more realistic portrait, even within a more explicitly fantastic context. It is the narrative of an intelligent, educated, modern black woman who is horrified to learn that none of her skills, talents, knowledge or initiative will help her break out of the servile and compromised life of a slave when she inadvertently time travels back to a time of slavery.

Both narratives break stereotypes, but only one, in my view, deserves to be called "childish." For someone to break stereotypes without experiencing any of the real world pushback, and often brutal, socially sanctioned enforcement, is nothing but a lie. On the other hand, the more "mature" narrative is NOT the one that made millions of dollars at the box office.