I think there are fantasies with less sexism in the world-building, and there are definitely fantasies where the story isn't misogynistic even if the culture in which it's set might be. But I guess that's what you mean about overcoming. Still, if you don't want a story soaked unthinkingly in male privilege, I'd recommend looking for more female authors, of which we have no shortage.
... I would point out that in the Riddle-Master trilogy, Raederle's father promised to marry her to whoever won Peven of Aum's crown. Even in the High One's Realm, women are not free from patriarchal constraints. ::shrugs::
If you want epic or long-form fantasy that I think does a good job with a wide variety of gendered distributions of social & economic power, give Kate Elliott's Crossroads series a try, starting with Spirit Gate. Her work tends to allow for social inequities without having her characters be bound by them necessarily.
Oh, also Sherwood Smith -- her Sartoran novels do have a gendered division of labor, but it's explicitly a world without sexual violence or the threat of it. Start with Inda.
Martha Wells' Wheel of the Infinite, or the Raksura novels -- in which there are no human beings, and the gender roles are entirely different.
Fran Wilde's Bone universe novels don't concern themselves with gender too much, as I recall; the social structure treats girls and boys roughly the same.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2019-04-04 04:26 am (UTC)... I would point out that in the Riddle-Master trilogy, Raederle's father promised to marry her to whoever won Peven of Aum's crown. Even in the High One's Realm, women are not free from patriarchal constraints. ::shrugs::
If you want epic or long-form fantasy that I think does a good job with a wide variety of gendered distributions of social & economic power, give Kate Elliott's Crossroads series a try, starting with Spirit Gate. Her work tends to allow for social inequities without having her characters be bound by them necessarily.
Oh, also Sherwood Smith -- her Sartoran novels do have a gendered division of labor, but it's explicitly a world without sexual violence or the threat of it. Start with Inda.
Martha Wells' Wheel of the Infinite, or the Raksura novels -- in which there are no human beings, and the gender roles are entirely different.
Fran Wilde's Bone universe novels don't concern themselves with gender too much, as I recall; the social structure treats girls and boys roughly the same.