Malazan Empire: Jade Raven - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

SE: The other thing of course was that we wanted to create a world without sexism. So we asked ourselves: “Well how can you… what would happen if magic actually worked? And then what would happen if we define magic and the acquisition of magic as egalitarian as something that anyone can achieve with sufficient discipline and determination?” Once we thought, OK that is the premise of magic, then any gender based on hierarchy of power cannot survive. It would never rise in the first place. Because you could not make your claim to power exclusive of either gender or skin color or culture or anything. So that kind of changes how people interact with each other and it changes the roles of gender as well, because if a woman needs only produce one or two children and be very confident both will survive to adulthood, they do not have to be the medieval baby factories that they once were. You know, when they had to produce ten children in the hope that two survive. They could produce two children, or one, and then get on with their lives. And that opens up for them any opportunity they choose. So it is a very different world. But having decided this, we faced the same problem. We were not going to have some farm boy come into the world and have a wizard explain to him that men and women are equal, right? We could not signpost any of this. So it is there, but it is not explicit, it is implicit. And many readers never caught it. They never noticed. They never noticed that it was a world without sexism. They never noticed that it was a world where pink skinned people are the minority, which is our world as well. But you know, that’s how it goes.