What do I you think about the way women are portrayed in Game of Thrones?

[Millie3030]

As the title says really, my husband watches it and loves it, but it annoys me, it seems like male titilation for me, half naked women, lots of prostitues, sex scenes and murder. But the main character is female and she seems a strong female character, and there are also other strong female characters in it.

What are your thoughts?

Oh that could be considered sexist in itself, but my point was that would be a problem with culture as a whole rather than with game of thrones in particular.
Actually the most difficult thing to get through compliance is an erect penis. That just can't be shown at all.
It's fairly arbitrary but it's also a chicken and egg situation. Is showing an erect penis banned because people will be offended and complain or are people offended and complain because it is banned and therefore deemed offensive? Or have people seen so many tits that they are desensitised, but an erect penis is more shocking because you only see them in pornography?

Personally I do see the nudity as relevant to the narrative in GoT because so much of the subtext is about sexual politics and gender roles. It would be odd to have a character of a prostitute who never took her clothes off during a sex scene.

Almondcakes I don't find it particularly surprising that nobody breastfeeds. For one, there aren't a lot of small children in it anyway. None of the lead female characters have infants, iirc. There are a lot of mother/child relationships shown, but mostly with older children. And for two, royal and noble women in medieval times tended to use wet nurses anyway. They weren't doing the breastfeeding themselves. Obviously this is a massive generalisation, since we're talking about many cultures over several centuries, but tbh I can't think of any character where her lack of breastfeeding doesn't make sense, iyswim? There are lots of ways in which GOT is highly problematic, but that's not one of them.

Penis count- I can think of three. Hodor, Theon, and that bloke being dragged behind the horse in series one. Much more boob and fanny, of course. Pert backsides of both sexes. I think some of the nudity is relevant to the narrative, but not all, and it does seem like you see more from the women than the men even when they're in the same sex scene. Ygritte and Jon Snow, for example.

One thing I do like, which is quite kickass, is that Brienne seems to be coming out as one of the top fighters. My brother is obsessed with the books and series, and active in online community, and he thinks it's being set up for her to beat up the Mountain.

There's a lot of talk of wet nurses certainly. Definitely in the books anyway.

there is an undeniable bias to full frontal female nudity, so even if we remove boobs as a sexual titillation female nudity is massively higher.

I'm going to rewatch the entire lot with a score chart and compare female to male nipple exposure, I've a feeling that'll be higher to the female bias too.

Without a doubt Moin

Much more than the nudity, the thing that struck me most sexist-angle-wise, is that this is clearly a very alternate universe - it has magic, White Walkers, dragons! - a world full of imaginings and what-ifs - and yet the author still gives it the traditional patriarchal structure - women are still basically the heir-givers, the currency and the chattels of men the true power-holders. As if it hardly needs to be even thought about it - that this is obviously and always will be The One True Way of things.

I love Thrones, though. It's quite my favourite series of the moment, narrowly beating the excellent Arvingerne/Legacy into second place.

To be fair, Martin's been clear that he takes inspiration from the Wars of the Roses and the Roman Empire. Both of which were hugely sexist periods. Imho it's legit to ask why he chose those particular societies, but since he did, I don't think it's so surprising that the stories reflect the patriarchal structures in place at the time.

I think it's also worth pointing out that many people find GOT to be racially problematic as well.

But the stories don't reflect the patriarchial structures in place at the time.

He may think they do, but that suggests to me he's just too lazy or misogynistic to check his facts.

(Harsh, I know, but it really gets on my nerves that he/his people perpetuate this idea, because people actually believe it and end up with an annoyingly simplistic and dodgy idea of actual history.)

Well sure, it's not an exact remake of the Wars of the Roses or anything. But he certainly has said he takes inspiration from both of those periods. I believe him when he says this, can identify some of the parallels he seems to be trying to draw, and haven't yet felt the need to hand back my history degree. Admittedly I'm a modernist...

The showing of boobs more than vagina/penis is wider than GoT & TV as a whole though.
Boobs are often seen on beaches, whereas vagina/penis would only be seen on nudist beaches.
And boobs are much more visible generally with bikinis, low cut tops showing much of them off.
Isn't it the nipple which people get offended by more?

I'm a medievalist, which is why I get picky.

I know he says that's where he's drawn inspiration. My hunch is he's actually read Malory, because what he does is much more like medieval fiction than medieval fact.

But, in any case, it's not really valid. Yes, you could say 'there was sexism then, and there is sexism in the books/TV, therefore there are parallels'. But I think that's so simple as to be meaningless really.

And I think it does matter, because a lot of people who have a casual knowledge of history will believe him and think, 'wow, times were terrible back then!' You get a lot of myths that just run and run. And the problem with that is, it sets up this false sense of complacency about the present day - people think 'well, it was terrible in the past, so really, we are making progress!'

In his books, incest is commonplace, forced marriage seems to be totally legal, and people torture prostitutes as a routine thing.

It is important to take a critical view of any work of fiction and there is plenty to critique in Grr martin's world ... But that doesn't stop me admiring the work for what it is and enjoying the tv adaptation. There are popular works set in fictional worlds that I have found much more offensive than GOT.

Dh got fed up with my commentary on the latest sin city film but I was horrified by the casual violence, extreme violence and constant fetishistic obsession with Eva Greens figure (which is incredible). There was a context, it was meant to be dark and ott but I found it horrible. There are countless others that I find more disturbing than GOT so I suppose that is why I find it hard to work up a good level of outrage about this work.

But there has to be a theatrical way to show a journey towards emancipation for women (which clearly is one of the themes or we wouldn't be talking about it) and sexual objectification is an easy and visual way to do that.
Not much point in that being a theme if the women are already emancipated.

There was only one breastfeeding scene in GOT so far and that's Caitlynn's sister up in the Eerie with her 8 year old son and it's shown to demonstrate her clinginess to him.

I'm sure I recall Gilly feeding her baby. Definitely she talks about it in the books, because she wet nurses Mance's baby too and his suck is different.

I don't know, I can't really get that worked up about GOT from a feminist angle. I agree it's representative of the ongoing pornification of society, but I don't think it's a big driver in the way something like GTA is. Most GOT fans seem to be reasonably intelligent people who take the "sexposition" with a pinch of salt. They have toned down the more recent series too I think. Anyway, I doubt many people watch it for the tits.

You are probably right Tinkly, i don't remember in the show but they were on the run from white walkers with nothing so probably was.

But, in any case, it's not really valid. Yes, you could say 'there was sexism then, and there is sexism in the books/TV, therefore there are parallels'. But I think that's so simple as to be meaningless really.

You could, but that's a deliberately over-reductive way to characterise the argument, so of course it's not very illuminating. I agree re the incest, though. There's so much of it, and while again there are supposed real life examples of ruling families 'keeping the bloodline pure' at various points in history, it's still fucking creepy.

I'd forgotten about Gilly when I said none of the female characters had small children. Probably blocked her out because she really irritates me. There aren't any others are there? I've only seen series 1-4 and not read the books, so apologies if I'm missing anything.

Yes, it was deliberately reductive.

But how many actual parallels are there that concern patriarchial society? I accept that the whole civil war, child kings, tournaments thing is medieval-y and I accept the wall in the North is Roman-ish and so on. But I don't think that much of what we're identifying as dodgy sexism is actually all that historical, is it?

People mostly seem to find the huge amounts of nudity, the violent sex and the very visible prostitution to be big issues. Those aren't things he lifted straight out of history, I don't think?

I feel uncomfortable with the argument - I mean, women still today get horribly raped and murdered. I watched the scene with Jaime and Circe and, to me, it felt uncomfortably modern. I feel as if it sweeps issues under the carpet to suggest it's all in the past.

I agree Gilly is fucking annoying.

There's a good number of intelligent and interesting female characters with their own plot line in it to stop me finding it a affronts my feminist sensibilities. There's a lot of tits arses and throughly modern fannys for sure but not to the point I feel it totally gratuitous

at 'thoroughly modern fannys'.

I do think it's gratuitous, and the strong female characters defence puzzles me.

I have much more of an issue with justifications of GoT than GoT itself. Which probably just proves I am a curmudgeon.

I cannot layclaim to 'throughly modern fannys' sadly, that was coined up thread.

Now I have to say I didn't say it wasn't gratuitous, it is, but because there are female characters with actual plot lines and not supporting male characters I find it more tolerable.

I thought the most ridiculous example of "thoroughly modern fanny" was when Osha the wildling seduced Theon and revealed a perfectly neat triangle of pubic hair, rather than the full bush a woman who'd never been near a salon her whole life would've sported! The actress really couldn't go without trimming for a few months?

An old tweet but still,
mobile.twitter.com/beatonna/status/336522674782212096

Well, it is a great phrase.

And yes, sorry, I take your point about gratuity (gratuitousness?).

I love that tweet so much.

Tweet is great isn't it, especially the twerp at the end who tells the original tweeter in a I can only imagine an attempt to patronisingly put her down that it isn't historical fiction. Yep you twerp that was her point!!!

That society can accept fantasy just as long as the woman have bodies and thouroughly modern fannies acceptable by the patriarchal expectation. Oh we like historical fantasy, yes we do, just as long as you ensure there's no subversion of the society expectations of the patriarchs. I think the lack in ethnic diversity in main roles has been mentioned on this thread.

Game of Thrones needs less boobage and more Idris Elba!