Letters to the Editor

Griefer Nation

"It would be impossible," you point out, "to give a character distinct gender-specific traits without sexualizing [her] to a certain extent." I don't disagree with you. I would just add that, first of all, we should consider how this statement reflects not just on female characters but male characters as well, and, second, that maybe sexualizing isn't bad. To remove the sex around a woman is literally to take away her sex. What we need to consider is how we can combine the power of a woman like Red, and the sexual identity that prevails in so many other female characters - how, in fact, the one can be made to feed off the other. This, in my opinion, had only been accomplished by those women who simultaneously inspire terror and attraction: namely, female monsters.

-Bonnie Ruberg