It's emotional labour. It's incredibly easy to write a book as it comes to you (my brain has a draft setting where every character with agenda is male, the technology is Renaissance-ish, and the magic has a certain flavour to it). It's not easy to question that default setting, to make the effort to see women (and PoC and people with disabilities and queer people...) _as people who matter_ and to ask yourself while you are writing whether you are inclusive and kind.
That first step, that acknowledgement that you need to put effort into not hurting other people, and that not hurting people matters, probably IS hard if you've been coddled all your life.
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yati
no subject
Date: 2020-02-15 03:14 pm (UTC)It's emotional labour. It's incredibly easy to write a book as it comes to you (my brain has a draft setting where every character with agenda is male, the technology is Renaissance-ish, and the magic has a certain flavour to it). It's not easy to question that default setting, to make the effort to see women (and PoC and people with disabilities and queer people...) _as people who matter_ and to ask yourself while you are writing whether you are inclusive and kind.
That first step, that acknowledgement that you need to put effort into not hurting other people, and that not hurting people matters, probably IS hard if you've been coddled all your life.
It's also necessary work.