To clarify It seems weird that you are singling out feminist when really any theory of gender would be similarly reductive when speaking of relative imaginative tools . The point isn ' t about whether or not it ' s reductive . The point is it ' s marketable . It ' s also complete bullshit , which is why I said it strains suspension of disbelief . Here ' s an excerpt of what I ' m talking about from Writing Excuses episode 9 . 9 c o n tentuploadsWritingExcuses 99 TrushStrangerthanFiction . mp 3 . Now , I Sometimes This is kind of a similar topic . One thing I ' ve run into is sometimes the truth is not stranger than fiction . It ' s what people expect , as we talked about before , and you ' ll be writing a book and you ' re like , This is what people anticipate . This is what I should do . The thing I The example I have is kind of the whole women ' s liberation idea . Where when you ' re treating women in most periods through time , you have to kind of look at women ' s place in society , and there ' s not the modern view of things like this . Certainly through most Through many periods , it ' s not as bad off as we assume , but it still being a woman is a hard thing in a man ' s world , so to speak . Dealing with this in my books is something that In Elantris , I ' m like I ' ve gotta I ' m going to have a woman rebelling against this and things like this . In Elantris , Vin is moving through very much a man ' s world and it ' s part of who she is and what ' s going on . After doing it through two series , I ' m like I just don ' t want to find a third take on this , right ? Do I need to , in every book , address this ? It is the truth that I really need to be looking at , at what point do I say , I ' m not going to make this a focus for the story anymore ? Yeah . In that particular case , when you say it ' s the truth you need to be looking at You ' re meaning because of the The truth that readers expect . Yes . As opposed to the actual Garbled they think you ' re making things up ? Because I ' m making fantasy worlds , where I can do as we talked about before , kind of the idea where in a fantasy world , I won ' t call it cheating but that ' s the easy term to describe it , where you can go and say , This world has adapted differently . You have to have much stronger gender equality in a society that in other ways feels very medieval but is Has grown and progressed in a different way . You can do that as a fantasy writer . Is it cheating ? I ' ve had to kind of talk about this with myself Think about this with myself . At what point is this cheating , at what point is it me just saying , No , this is how the world is ? It ' s okay to do that . Since there are matriarchal societies , it ' s completely plausible . It ' s just selling it . You wanted to say something , Nancy ? Yeah . Well , I was going to say that I think you can do a lot , too , over the characters . Because in any society , regardless of the way that the gender roles in the society are laid out , you are going to have personality types who find the gender situation very difficult , and you are going to have personality types who breeze right through it and hardly even notice . Even Take me , right ? I was one of three women in my computer science program . Never bugged me . Never fazed me . As an adult now , I look at the situation and one perceives it a little bit differently . But as a 21 yearold , not a problem for me at all . That is very closely related to my background , my situation , other factors in my life , and my personality type . But if one is able to take a character and make that character believable , I think one can use the character very often is a focusing lens to focus on certain aspects of the society and the culture and leave other ones out . That ' s very good advice . As Brandon mentioned , he ' s knowingly adapting his medieval fantasy novels to the tastes of his feminist gender theory demanding audience . He feels trapped by having to include the same story line over and over again , of a girl fighting against the fantasy Patriarchy . Feminist Gender Theory limits his ability to write as much as his religious beliefs .