Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

virtualaenigma OP t1_ixcth9p wrote

The author may have simply written a strong character who happens to be female. The author may never have intended the character's gender to be a focal point but a feminist would praise the book as though the author intended to strengthen a female character. That would be false praise for the author.

Maybe my example doesn't make sense but the point I'm making is that for me to praise a book for presenting a concept or a perspective that was not the author's intent is unearned praise for the author.

1

Ok_Let8329 t1_ixddqqq wrote

>The author may have simply written a strong character who happens to be female. The author may never have intended the character's gender to be a focal point but a feminist would praise the book as though the author intended to strengthen a female character. That would be false praise for the author.

The author is actually deserving of more praise in that example, because he wrote a strong female character subconsciously, and so he's naturally a feminist and his work is not contrived.

>Maybe my example doesn't make sense but the point I'm making is that for me to praise a book for presenting a concept or a perspective that was not the author's intent is unearned praise for the author.

You might've had this experience with a few books and are trying to extrapolate a universal theory. I can't think of any good examples of this, though.

1