We’ve all heard of the Madonna-Whore Complex. It’s a largely bastardised Freudian theory that claims men conceptualise women within two categories: the virginal Madonna, or the corrupted whore.
While it has long sprouted wings and flown the nest of early psychosexual analysis, there is still some credence to the idea that men compartmentalise the women in their lives. And treat them accordingly to each role assigned.
The reason I bring this up is because I’d like to put forth my own psychoanalysis that women conceptualise each other into separate categories too. Not only in adopting the Madonna-Whore Complex founded in male sexual anxieties, but based on their own status competition.
I’d like to dub this: The Madonna-Monarch Complex. A theory that opines that women are split between two life choices: being the cold, avaricious, oppressive career woman or the doting, self-sacrificial, submissive housewife.
For the purposes of staying on theme, this will mostly relate to the portrayal of women in genre fiction. Though I have also broached the topic on how frustrating this pattern is in broader media. Just in terms of fantasy, I have found it interesting how popular it’s become to insinuate that women writing about queens, princesses or aristocrats are also endorsing those oppressive systems in a way male writers frequently aren’t.
Online bookish communities skew towards women who are superficially liberal. I say superficial because many of these critiques are, in my opinion, disingenuous. While some parties are well-meaning, oftentimes these critiques feel like a Trojan horse to usher in deeply ingrained conservative rhetoric under the guise of progressivism.
You see it in the way everyone starts wringing hands the moment anyone writes about a female lead advancing in an unequal society. Suddenly, a narrative that is very commonplace among men must be hung, drawn and quartered for its apparent “endorsement” of colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, racism—you may insert your -ism of choice.
We can accept narratives of men upholding power or attaining it because it doesn’t challenge the status quo. But a woman’s relationship to power is always expected to be morally exceptional. It’s not enough to see a woman accomplish her lifelong goals. No, she must also be burdened with the expectation that she dismantle the system of inequality entirely. When she doesn’t, the bad faith complaints arise. She isn’t sufficiently “feminist” enough. She isn’t a good role model. Or character, apparently. She isn’t someone we should aspire towards or relate to.
You can imagine how this puts female characters in an impossible-to-win conundrum. Because female readers have no issue reading about a male lead being awful and power-hungry from the outset, as his ambition is assumed to be morally neutral until proven otherwise. Female power, on the other hand, is treated as morally suspect. There is an unspoken expectation that we are to achieve total liberation without ever becoming complicit in imperfect systems—as though participation itself is uniquely damning for us. It’s no wonder that so many female authors feel inclined towards narratives where we relinquish power, rushing them down the aisle into marriage or the grave as penance for their transgressions.
But my question is: why? Why is it—as Moira Donegan so aptly put it in this wonderful essay dissecting the Girlboss—we demand utopian, egalitarian societies before women are permitted to take their equal place within them?
This brings me back to the rhetorical question that’s often posed by critics of feminism’s emphasis on women’s paid work: “Why would you want women to have more power in an unjust system?” I sympathize with the question: at its best, it can give feminism a utopian vision, and keep the stultifying fatalism of liberalism at bay. But at its worst, the question reflects an impulse to pursue moral purity at the expense of material progress. Why would you want women to have more power in an unjust system? Because the unjust systems are the only ones available. Because the exclusion of women from power is one source of this injustice. Because women gaining power is a prerequisite for them to become free. “Why would you want women to have more power in an unjust system?” isn’t a bad question. But it raises another one: Just how perfect does the world have to be before women will deserve to take their equal place in it?
That’s a standard we almost never apply to men. We don’t browbeat male writers with empty platitudes such as:
- “You can’t write a male king because monarchy is oppressive.”
- “You can't write a male CEO because capitalism is oppressive.”
- “You can’t write a male general because militaries are oppressive.”
We accept that male characters can occupy positions of power while the narrative decides whether they’re good, bad, tragic or somewhere in between. Yet when a woman occupies exactly the same position, there’s often an immediate leap to question whether the story is endorsing some immoral hierarchy. That expectation effectively says women must either dismantle power or refuse it. They’re not permitted to exercise it without becoming morally compromised.
You see this recurring double standard in sweeping fantasy epics like A Song of Ice and Fire where Daenerys’ chapters get dissected with a scalpel for how they supposedly promote white supremacy, colonialism, and white feminism. Her mere existence became a proxy battle for contemporary feminism in a way that male rulers rarely do. Nor did anyone argue that Martin believes hereditary monarchy is the ideal form of government simply because it’s full of kings and queens. But romantasy female leads, and their authors, are much more likely to be interrogated as though every fictional throne represents their political beliefs.
The irony is people don’t see that we’ve been hoodwinked. Because the consequence of closing off the path to social mobility for women leaves the only resulting course to become a wife and mother. And, contrary to what liberalism would have you believe, this is seen to be a woman’s rightful place. Far superior to one where she happens to hold power in a system that is unjust. But it’s all a farce, you see. Because even when choosing the noble calling of domesticity she still ends up written into the clutches of a wealthy, powerful man who exercises total control over her and their resulting children. A man whose oppressive status in the hegemony is never so harshly questioned as hers.
And it forces me to ask whether we’ve cut off our nose to spite our face here. Whether it’s truly progressive to intensely scrutinise the portrayal of female monarchs, military leaders, CEOs, and the like. Not because I disagree that the systems they participate in and uphold are unjust, but because the perfect solution against these positions has not yet presented itself.
Until they do, I do not think it safe nor sane to advocate that we are better off struggling under the whims of more powerful men simply because it retains our axis of oppression.
If you're seeking a fantasy series that embraces its heroine's ambition, The Essence of the Equinox explores the nuances and complexities of women taking power in inequitable societies.
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