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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   25593 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025

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Disney is back where it started:

Disney’s Boy Trouble: Studio Seeks Original IP to Win Back Gen-Z Men Amid Marvel, Lucasfilm Struggles

But we've been here before. Around the late '00s, Disney felt that it was shackled by its perception as a girl brand, and needed some boy-friendly properties. There were some that had had some success - Pirates of the Caribbean, Cars - but it wanted more. (Article 1, article 2 on marketing research in 2009 about this.)

They took a few gambles on intellectual property they already owned (or at least that wasn't too expensive) - Tron, The Lone Ranger, John Carter of Mars and so forth - but those didn't give them the wins they wanted.

So they bought Marvel and Lucasfilm and, over the 2010s, got a good many billions of dollars in box office returns from them both. But now both Marvel and Star Wars are sputtering at best, so it seems they think it's time to start up the search anew.

The obvious question is what happened to their last investments. The polite answer is that they stopped producing acceptable stories, or overexposed or overextended their franchises with TV shows and the like beyond general audiences' interest. But is that all? "To lose one strategic franchise may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness." What's to say that they won't make the same mistake again, whatever it was?

So there are less polite answers. That link leads to the /r/saltierthancrait discussion of the article (taken down now, by the looks of things. Too impolite even there!) where the poster summarizes their take on the story as "1. Buy new IP to have something for boys 2. Alienate them by pandering to girls 3. Repeat."

And even if it's so that both franchises' declines followed girl-power (or other identity-politics) pushes, that's still not a correlation that one's supposed to draw in polite company, not without a lot of throat-clearing. And true: the orthodox explanation of quality decline and overextension has much truth to it, and it's even possible to explain any alienation of target demographics as being due to such overextension: the same ambition that led Disney to want to give itself some appeal to boys also could lead it to try to make Marvel or Star Wars appeal more to girls. Maybe pure greed is the only explanatory factor needed.

Still, though, I have my doubts. I feel like there's a cultural undercurrent, much broader than just Disney, that it's a problem whenever anything is enjoyed by boys(/men) and not girls(/women). Perhaps there's an element of blank-slatism here: the belief that gender differences are all due to socialization, and in a perfect, prejudice-free world, male and female tastes would be the same.

That is: if there were any value to [something], then girls would see it. If they're not there with the boys, then either they're being kept away by something toxic or exclusionary, or there isn't any value to the thing and the boys shouldn't be having fun with it, either. Anything with predominantly male enthusiasts therefore should be either integrated or banned. (Going the other way, it seems much more easily accepted that boys are at fault for not being interested in something that girls are, for example.)

But if it's not true that, but for patriarchy, boys and girls would have the same interests, then the pursuit of this equalization can result in feeding a whole lot of interests or fields or value in general into the void. If lightsabers and starfighters appealing more to boys than to girls was not a problem that needed fixing, and Disney doesn't realize this, then they'll slide right back into this pit every time they try to escape. And if it is true, well - they'd better hope that they can somehow find fixes that work.

What are some examples of "girl" stories that aren't cringe pandering softcore-relationship-porn wish fulfillment only (lame) women find appealing?

That isn't a leading question, it's an honest one, I'm sure they exist. But the people who write those don't get jobs at Disney. A lot of these girl stories seem to be made completely independent of everything that's been learned about basic storytelling structure, like they've been made up from scratch instead of being built on a foundation of previous works.

I Think the only woman author I've read extensively is the Dragonriders of Pern books by Anne McCaffrey, which was back in high school. While I remember those having female protagonists, they did heavily feature men, many of whom were genuinely loved by the author and characters in-universe (the master harper), for being men. There was the full spectrum of heroes and villains of whatever gender. I suppose some of the male characters had realistically male flaws that stuff written for dudes would normally leave out, almost like the author had, you know, known men in real life. But in McCaffrey is very obviously some kind of spergy horse girl, and wasn't writing to be in line with 2020s corporate intersectional feminism.

Oh and Harry Potter. Those are at least competently written, and are generally appealing to everyone without pandering to one gender or another.

Ursula le Guin was a woke feminist, but she wrote stories that didn't feature romances or girlbosses (partly because she did her best work before the girlboss trope crystallised). I'm not sure whether you count her as writing "girl" stories.

Gone with the Wind

Atlas Shrugged. Dagny Taggart could be seen as a prototype girlboss.

I skim-read that as 'Call of the Wild' (the Jack London novel where a sled dog goes to live in the woods with wolves) and was very confused. But happy that 'girl stories' were finally moving in my direction. Alas.

What are some examples of "girl" stories that aren't cringe pandering softcore-relationship-porn wish fulfillment only (lame) women find appealing?

Depends what you mean by girl stories? Stories with female protagonists, or stories that girls/women like?

If it's the former, I remember enjoying the Old Kingdom series as a kid. The stories all (or mostly?) had female protagonists who were recognisably women, but they weren't romantasy books, the focus was on the magic and the fantasy elements. The author is male but I think he just preferred writing female protagonists.

Susan Cooper's 'The Dark Is Rising' is pure young-adult adventure fantasy and done very well.

CS Friedman's 'Crown of Shadows' series is a personal favorite, and a twisted mix of sci-fi and fantasy and also done very well.

Hell, even the penultimate male-fantasy young-adult book 'My Side of the Mountain' was written by a woman.

I always considered it a bit weird when people bitched about the lack of female writers in fiction, when I turn to my bookshelves for 1970/80s fantasy and flip through female after female writer. If anything, it's the men that are lacking, not the women.

Labyrinth starring David Bowie.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman starring Jane Seymour.

Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth.

There are plenty of high quality stories exploring the feminine side of the human condition. They're just a bit hard to find because you have to dig past the propaganda lists of explicitly ideologically feminist works. Not that those are necessarily bad, but they do hog the spotlight to a pretty insane degree.

Girl Genius perhaps. Though there is a romantic subplot, the main female character explicitly chooses the well-being of her people/land over and above romance.

I would not count Girl Genius as a girl story. It isn't aimed at a female audience, at least I don't think it is.

The writers are a husband-wife pair (I think they said the wife is mostly responsible for the story, the husband mostly responsible for the art), the title literally has "Girl" in the name, and the main character is a woman.

That said, it does have the old-style male adventure feel. Sometimes as parody, sometimes seriously.

I think we can say it has broad-spectrum appeal. I went to their Facebook page and looked at the names of the people who liked the latest comic page, it seemed about 50/50 male-female split.

I guess it all depends on what a "girl" story is. If girl story is only defined as a story that men avoid then of course we won't find any "examples of "girl" stories that aren't cringe pandering softcore-relationship-porn wish fulfillment only (lame) women find appealing"

Next morning edit:

I almost didn't suggest Girl Genius out of fear that it was one of the cringe pandering stories. It has a love triangle where the main character is pursued by a heir-to-the-empire and a boy with a past that haunts him. And the boys are terrible simps, totally head over heels for the main character. And also surprisingly chaste/respectful, averting their eyes and blushing if they see Agatha in her (Victorian-style) underwear.

It has a lost society of Amazon women warriors. It's kind of a Princess Diaries plot, "ordinary women finds out she's secretly a lost princess and must learn how to fit in with her new society" type thing.

I would argue that it's very much a female story, even if the females reading it are the ones making up the "39% of physical science degrees awarded in the US."

I wish they’d bring out more of the novels. I love the writing but the art doesn’t really do it for me.

Yeah, the art is busy. And shiny. When I first read it I mostly just looked at the dialogue bubbles, which was worth it on its own. Then once I caught up to the present, I took the time to look through the new comic pages as they were released, one at a time, and started picking up on the visual gags.

I wouldn't say it's my favorite art style, but I started to parse it better after exposure, then went back and reread it. It almost conflicts with the story. If you try to soak in the art, the story slows to a crawl (which is fine on a re-read, less fine for a suspenseful visual novel like this is.)

People don't always realize, art in GG changes noticeably during its run.

Some context. In comic book industry it is(/was) quite common that the artist is responsible for "art" (pencil line-drawings), but black ink is done by the inker, and other colors are added by the colorist. Last two are/were viewed assistant role. In The Dark Knight Returns, drawing is credited to Frank Miller (who most people have heard of), inks are by Klaus Janson and colors by Lynn Varley who are less known. I think the division of labor was product of the 20th century color print technology, all the tasks were bit different skillsets. There always has been 'auteurs' who wanted control over all aspects of product, and with digital indie publishing it has became more common, but division of tasks was industry standard practice for pumping out comics product quickly.

How is this relevant to Girl Genius? Phil Foglio started his illustrator career in the old industry (born in 1950s, genuine member of boomer generation), I guess that is how he is used to work. Today the colorist is Cheyenne Wright. Additionally, Mr Foglio's style for GG today has quite faint line art, and he embraces a comic book style with bubble heads and round eyes (which is not perhaps most artistic, but it is his style and enables him to draw one page in day). Most of the work that makes it look semi-realistic is with color, shadows and textures. Consequently color and ink has huge impact on the visuals, in the way it doesn't for more 'flat' art like Garfield. First volume available on the web has muted colors, which were a later addition to original black-white publication (you can see it was originally BW, there is so much black ink). Then subsequently they brought in a colorist, who did very colorful, shiny neon lighted color-work. (in-story explanation that it represents main character's inner world expanding as her superpowers "break through". I think when people complain about GG art, it is this period, unless they can't stand Foglio's rubbery faces at all). After couple of volumes the colorist changed, to Mr Wright and I think it is better.

About the story aspect, I believe the Foglio's are true believers in sex-positive feminism. (Look up XXXenophile). Many elements in the stories do tick the GIRLPOWERR box. (Nearly every female character in the series is excellent superstrong martial arts fighter, justified by magitech). I agree it doesn't fail the way some other more pushy products fail. First reason is the romance, about that later. Secondly, they are boomers, perhaps it helps them stay somewhat grounded. Their takes are often informed by their feminist takes, but they are still also interested in telling compelling stories and interesting characters, not stories about characters who are feminist ideal stereotypes and nothing else.

First it is important, the main protagonists' romantic subplot is not really subplot, the romance plot(s) very much are main drivers of all story archs. Most of sidekicks have their romantic subplots, too. It just that "for boys", the main action on screen is mystery-action-adventure, not the romantic elements. Very shonen anime, frankly. Romance is often background cause of the situations that come to be. The reason why it works, it is pracically always a cishet romance, so it must involve male characters. And they do write male characters competent, interesting, different personalities, with varying amount of masculine traits, with pursuits and challenges that have story weight of their own, not only about their interest in heroine but then interact with her.

I suspect they think they're feminists. Joshua Norton thought he was emperor of the United States.

As far as I can tell they're fandom carnies.

Kaja looks like one of those women who Doesn't Count as far as the People Whose Opinions Matter are concerned, like most autistic "feminists" who think principles trump social skills and status. Occasionally useful, always disposable.

The writing is too "sex pest" to earn remembered approval in real life and too heterosexual to thrive outside it. (I see there's already been drama of the expected variety.)

I would file it under the same category as any "comic-book woman with green eyes, red hair, and Amazonian physique" thing. Even if the protagonist doesn't look the part. She's burlesque enough.

More comments

Many elements in the stories do tick the GIRLPOWERR box. (Nearly every female character in the series is excellent superstrong martial arts fighter, justified by magitech).

...And yet, they don't actually crowd out the male characters, who are likewise super-strong martial arts fighters, again justified by magitech, unless they're just magitech wizards or some other variety of superbeing. Klaus Wolfenbach in particular is portrayed from the outset as more or less omnicompetent, universally feared and respected, and a massive threat to the main characters and their plans, escapable only due to the unwieldy nature of his empire. Othar, Gil, the Jaegers generally, all are portrayed as prime hero material, and frequently enjoy genuine spotlight time.

I'd argue it's the advantage of true belief; in the world of Girl Genius, men and women are equal, in every way that counts; muscle and bone mass and psychological proclivities are eclipsed utterly by the power of the Spark.

Moana 1 is great. Encanto is great.

Zootopia too. There's some woke messaging, but the story is a hell of a lot of fun.

Count one up for the furries. Zootopia is probably the best rubber-meets-the-road film about the prejudice of biological differences. And they get to make that story because it stars talking animals.

During the writing of that movie, there was a significant amount of development done around the concept that in order for the society to work, the dangerous animals were fitted with control collars. In the making of, there's this wonderful deleted scene that they didn't end up including in the movie where an father predator animal is at his son's birthday and getting him fitted with that collar, and for the kid it's this great rite of passage: I am finally an adult - and there's just this sadness in the adult's eyes because they know what is being done to their child.

They didn't keep it in for obvious reasons after a few rounds of story review, but I think about that scene a lot these days.

Aspects of Encanto are great, but central plot elements are treated in a very unsatisfying way.

The magic of the setting appears in several different guises: Roman Catholic folk miracles, brujería, Disney princess magic; but it doesn't behave consistently with any of them, doing instead whatever the writers thought was dramatically appropriate at the moment. The movie collapses the object and meta levels of its major symbol in an unprincipled way that feels like a cop out. And even once it's established that the symbolism of magic = family love is all that matters, the backstory revelations undermine it: Was it grandpa's death that brought about family love?

Great animation, good songs, exasperating writing.

once it's established that the symbolism of magic = family love is all that matters, the backstory revelations undermine it: Was it grandpa's death that brought about family love?

... Yes?

He's leading refugees away from their burning village, he sees soldiers catching up to them on horseback, and he kisses his wife and babies goodbye to turn back and (checks video) wave down the soldiers. Rather than using the opportunity to run or hide, his wife stops in her tracks to watch him die. The natural interpretation here is "he loved them so much that he would run to his own death just to buy them another minute to run and hide, and she loved him so much that even in those circumstances she couldn't bear to leave him, and The Magic rewarded such powerful love." (The other interpretation, "neither of them had the common sense or tactical acumen of a mouse, and The Magic took pity on such powerful stupidity", doesn't really fit the movie's tone.)

Encanto was...2/3rds of an interesting story with some great music that suffered from the same problem as a lot of recent Disney - no actual antagonist.

Wasn’t the grandma the antagonist?

Sort of... it was ultimately the grandma's misunderstanding of the magic's source/purpose that created the anxieties that led to the magic not working anymore, but it was this abstract anxiety that was the antagonist rather than an outright malevolent force. The only stakes for the magic not working were that the magic was cool and it would be sad for it to not work. To me, actualization/fulfillment is a perfectly good goal for a story.

There's a pretty decent number of women authors who just write male-focused or general fiction, especially for teen and young adult audiences. See Diane Duane (the first three Young Wizards and then Book of Night With Moon are highlights) or (and 6/6 of Erin Hunter) for better-known examples. It's probably more interesting to talk about women writing female-oriented-relationship-stuff in ways guys wouldn't be repulsed by. For that... :

  • Diana Wynne Jones is best-known these days for Howl's Moving Castle, but I like to recommend her Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin as good examples of stories that have a plot, but are about relationships. In Derkholm (tl;dr: fantasy send-up of portal fantasy from the view of the world's natives who are treated as a tourist spot, as a commentary on industrialized evil and pointy-haired bosses), between the main character and his wife and family, and with his immediate peers; in Year of the Griffin (tl;dr wizard school story with the interesting twist that the main characters don't struggle to fit in) between the protagonists and a society that they don't know if they can trust.
  • CJ Cherryh's more standard scifi fare, and she's no Zahn, but she's a pretty good writer, and especially Chanur is driven by relationships far more than tactics or technobabble, but still hits that Pernish 'there's an actual plot, it's just not faffing and then suddenly everybody's friends/lovers'.
  • Bujold should go without saying, but the Vorkorsigan saga is very much about phrasing women-relationship-things into forms men and especially young men are trying to grow into: honor, loyalty, trustworthiness, and legitimate use of force. I'll recognize that Gentleman Jole isn't very good, but Komarr, Memory, Cetaganda, just very strong each.
  • Mercedes Lackey... is mixed. Valdemar is Very female, even by the standards of Telecoms (if you liked that bit of Pern) or Romantic Fantasy; the Elemental Masters series (and not-quite-part-of-it Fire Rose) are extremely well revised takes on classical fairie tales in ways that are more enjoyable reads than technically impressive. But she's pretty much a distillation of what guys say they don't like, without the obnoxious parts that they don't like about it.
  • Tamora Piece is more male-friendly and often technically better, but in turn it's less clearly women's-relationship-writing in most works, if still less could-pass-as-male as Duane.

((That said, I'm one of probably thirty people on the planet who liked Darkship Thieves, so my taste is... not very refined.))

EDIT: for a 'do they follow the Hero's Journey' rule, I'd say most of them fit pretty well. No on Fire Rose and there's a couple of the Vorkorsigan books that break from it, though they've still got the 'failed-to-do-thing, developed-skills, do-the-thing' bit. Year of The Griffin's Abyss is pretty shallow -- it's a ultimately a comedy -- but the points are there and somewhat refreshing for not just slapping the Harry Potter-style stuff in. Book of Night With Moon's Abyss is both deep and realistic enough (Satan kills the viewpoint character's mom and drowns The New Guy's siblings such that he contributed to their deaths to survive) that I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for younger readers, but the mirrors to the Monomyth actually play a pretty big role in the denouement.

There's a pretty decent number of women authors who just write male-focused or general fiction, especially for teen and young adult audiences.

I recently delved into LitRPG/Cultivation sphere, which I think is somwhat newish offhoot of scifi/fantasy genre and is at least adjacent to YA scene/audience. And to be frank, I start to think that female protagonists like in surprisingly interesting Azarinth Healer series may work better in that context. The male protagonists in many of these stories are some combination of weak whiners, being overshadowed and constantly scolded/humiliated by female side characters, having weird fetish/harem sidestories and more.

The pet theory of mine is that feminism is basically projection of male virtues/characteristics on females. Terrible girl-bossing is just projection of what feminists view as toxic masculinity on women: aggressive know-it-alls, emotionless or even cruel leaders etc. If the author can do modicum of work to reign that tic at least a little bit, they can actually end up with decent formerly male character only in skirt. With female protagonist you will not see her being literally hit on head if she says something "dumb", scolded for being a creep, being told that she is an idiot, humiliated or womensplained for not knowing something or any other type of terrible writing now so prevalent with male heroes. Or to me more precise even if they are addressed like that, they have a mature response to it.

It reminds me of the story how the character of Ellen Ripley from Alien was originally written for male actor and how it surprisingly worked well for female - especially in a world where only women are allowed to have oldschool male traits/virtues.

Mercedes Lackey... is mixed. Valdemar is Very female, even by the standards of Telecoms

...huh. Wasn't expecting to see a link to one of my own old posts.

Mind if I ask what prompted you to keep a link to it?

You've got a strong skill for explanations available to outsiders, so I've got a pretty decent number in that category. Here you also go into both the appeal of the genre and a lot of its weaknesses, and how they could be much stronger if writers engaged with them more critically, in ways that even a lot of strong fans of the genre (and even some Digimon fans!) tend to overlook.

Well, uh... awkward. And a bit embarrassing. But glad it resonated, and thank you for answering.

Cheers!

((That said, I'm one of probably thirty people on the planet who liked Darkship Thieves, so my taste is... not very refined.))

I liked it okay, for what was basically Heinlein fan-fiction with a self-insert Mary Sue.

Mercedes Lackey? Not everything she's written, but there was that one book about a teen boy being bullied... who then gets the magic power to set his bullies on fire (and set other things on fire). I had no complaints.

Wasn't that the one where the male passes on the romantic opportunity with a pretty girl in favor of his horse or something?

I mean if you just mean 'written by a woman' the Hunger Games trilogy had broad appeal.

Hunger Games was a hit with a mostly female audience - I think it counts as a "girl" story. I also think it counts as a refreshing new take on the obnoxious romance/girlboss tropeset - see this three part vivisection by the Last Psychiatrist, which I fully endorse on this point.

This book should not resonate with 15 year olds, not this much. Which means that these girls are still getting sexist signals from somewhere, and, follow the trail, those signals came from the 40 year old women who like the story, i.e. "feminists." This is what I mean when I say the system no longer needs men to maintain the status quo: it has feminists doing the job for it. - TLP

In this, Dave Sim was prescient when he authored and drew Cerebus the Aardvark. Initially a Conan the Barbarian satire, it became one of the greatest long-form anti-feminist screeds in Western literature. The political and religious totalitarian sect known as the Cirinists do their best to demolish the patriarchy, but in the end, become a monstrous variation unrestrained by chivalry.

Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising quadrilogy. (Skip the first one until you’ve finished the rest.) To my mind it’s the best of what British fantasy can be, though not modern.

I also loved those books. (Alan Garner was my favourite contemporary fantasy writer growing up in England, but Cooper was a close second). The Dark is Rising is written by a woman, but it isn't a "girl" story - Will, Bran and Merriman are all standard male heroic archetypes played straight.

Man, I didn't think anyone else but me has read those. Yes, this was my absolute favorite series when I was a kid.

(And Over Sea, Under Stone is a bit dull compared to the rest of the series, but don't skip it.)

Do skip the movie, though. Hollywood made a movie (supposedly) based on the first book called The Seeker that pissed off Susan Cooper so much she was kicked off the set. With good reason- it is one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

Man, I didn't think anyone else but me has read those. Yes, this was my absolute favorite series when I was a kid.

I also read the series as a kid, and while it wasn't my favorite, I enjoyed it.

I also haven't seen anyone mention the book that was my favorite read as a kid — enough I wore out my first paperback copy and had to buy a second — which also had a female author and was first in a fantasy-with-some-SF-elements (some might call it the other way around) series (not to mention more than one less-than-good film adaptation by Disney): Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.

(I still get a chill rereading the passage when Meg finally sees IT.)

I also read the entire Wrinkle in Time series as a kid. Great books (and while not explicitly Christian, very Christian-influenced).

Also great, though I haven’t read it for years. I’ll have to dig it up.

I liked the Cooper books especially because they’re steeped in English history and mythology, and they resonated with me very much growing up in the English countryside.

Greenwitch won the Newberry, so the series would be a pretty common read for 1990s kids.

Wasn't it The Grey King that got the Newberry? I mean, it has conspicuous Newberry bait at one point.

You're right, my bad. I think I just remember watching countless book reports of Greenwitch in 5th grade, which was popular due to its low page count.

Oh, Christ, the movie. I only saw the trailer but that was more than enough. It’s a pity Cooper wasn’t as good as Rowling at keeping the maniacs off.

Over Sea, Under Stone is good, I just don’t recommend it when I’m recommending the series because it gives the wrong impression about what the series will be like IMO.

Glad to find another fan!

Little House on the Prairie springs to mind.

For fantasy, I enjoyed The Song of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce when I was 11-12ish. It’s basically just your standard medieval setting hero’s journey story with a girl, mostly avoids giving her waif fu, and as I recall eventually makes her a mage to give her a leg up on competing with the full grown adult male knights at the end of the series.

She also wrote the Wild Magic series following a teenage girl who was some kind of special wizard, which had 4 books. I recall the first two being pretty entertaining for an adolescent male, and the last two descending into kind of stereotypical “Who will I choose, poor plain I, the powerful demon or the powerful wizard?” sort of modern female romantasy.

The first series she wrote in the 80s, and the second in the 90s, so there might have been a bit of a canary in the coal mine there as far as which direction publishing was heading.

Are you asking for "girl stories" (that aren't smut-adjacent) or "stories written by women that aren't girl stories"?

I would argue that Harry Potter is not a girl story. While Rowling has some problems writing adolescent boys (and for that matter, her adult Cormoran Strike novels sometimes show a bit of women-writing-men weaknesses), the Harry Potter series was very much a boy's adventure (and was sometimes even criticized for that, despite its fanbase being majority female). However, as a story that appeals to girls yet doesn't also alienate boys, it's probably the ur-example today.

Dragonriders of Pern is, as you say, something that appeals to spergy horse girls and I have seen female authors inspired by it refer to it as "girl-canon," but back in the day it had a broad cross-gender appeal. (The "Harper Hall" sequel trilogy was much more of a for-girls thing.)

There are a number of female authors who write decent novels that appeal to men: Lois McMaster Bujold, Elizabeth Moon, C.J. Cherryh. Leaning more towards "feminine perspective but still readable by a man," Leigh Bardugo, Cathrynne Valente (the author is insufferably woke and has one of the worst cases of TDS I have ever seen, but I really do recommend her Fairyland books, which are both very much "girl" stories but something I would totally read to a boy), Naomi Novik (a lot of people love her Napoleonic wars-with-dragons Tremaire series though personally I didn't), Ursula LeGuin. And outside the SFF genre, Alex Marwood, Sara Gran, Lisa Brackman.

Really, it isn't that hard to find good female authors who aren't writing didactic man-hating feminist novels or romantasy. Finding books that appeal to young readers of both sexes is harder but not impossible.

Even when she writes boys it feels like she's writing girls. Like the most soy character presence, dialog and actions. Bless me I didn't have the words to describe it back then, but I always hated those parts of her stories. The movies were mildly ok because I could focus on the fantasy setting instead of the misery porn that was poor little orphan Harry.

Aw, I liked Tremaire (although I didn't even think of the author's gender until now). Not a fan of how hard it leaned into the telecom tropes, or an issue the writing quality/plot pacing?

I like Temeraire but it annoys me how often the book goes, ‘Man isn’t Napoleonic England stuffy! Just as well dragon riders are rare and so we get to be as liberated as we please!’.

Great books. I would say they are, if not explicitly Christian, at least meant to be read that way. Jesus gets name dropped once or twice, angels feature prominently, and one of the books (Many Waters) has the protagonists get dropped right in the middle of the Flood story from Genesis. L'engle doesn't come right out and name Christianity, but the pieces are there (and of course she herself was Christian).

Edit way after the fact: this was supposed to be a reply to @Amadan about the Wrinkle in Time series, I have no idea how it got attached to this comment instead! Sorry for any confusion, Corvos.

I can't really say; it just didn't grab me. Part of it is that frankly, the Napoleonic era is just not a setting that has ever interested me much.

Naomi Novik

also helped code AO3 and still writes fanfiction under a pen-name. Plus her fairy-tale retellings and scholomance series were very solid reads, if undeniably girl-coded.

She's like the spiders georg of female-author-male-appeal. Legit built different.

also helped code AO3

That’s awesome, I never knew that! I knew she was a writer on video games but I didn’t realise she coded as well.

LeGuin started strong but then became consciously feminist and repudiated her earlier work.

I recall her describing how embarrassed she felt in retrospect at making Ged a man, as though a male hero should be the default.

She was always consciously feminist (or at least very leftist). I am not aware of her repudiating her earlier work, but I agree that her early stuff was better.

She was, but it wasn’t until later that she decided that you couldn’t be feminist and write a world containing a male-only organisation that was powerful and wise. Especially when a certain number of your women are witchy - powerful but often in a secretive and manipulative way.

I'm asking for stories that are identifiably girl stories but also follow basic storytelling rules rather than expressing the basest cringe urges of women (and then the vampire bad boy and the werewolf bad boy fight over me while I sit there and wait to be taken by the winner, and the vampire wins, but the werewolf is okay because he finds someone else, then the vampire marries me) or being girl-power pandering. I'm talking "man goes up tree, people throw rocks at him, man comes down from the tree, Changed" level rules.

I know they exist, writers who can write them exist, and yet Disney can't find them. Instead it's "girl goes up tree, is stunning and brave, rocks bounce off of her, men are such trash amirite, the end."

Joan Aiken's Dido Twite books might fit this, as might Patricia Wrede's Mairelon the Magician series.

I'm asking for stories that are identifiably girl stories but also follow basic storytelling rules rather than expressing the basest cringe urges of women

Kemono no Sou-ja Erin. It's about a sensitive but plucky young girl who, over the course of her life, tries to make connections with people, create social peace, and uphold her values in a cynical world of intense political and social conflict. Positive femininity is shown as a kind of extremophile lichen, which grows in the cracks of an amoral dog-eat-dog world. With each new challenge, Erin has to find a way to turn people away from their dark impulses, resolve interpersonal conflicts, and be subversively moral under evil rules.

I'd certainly introduce this show to a 8yo-16yo daughter if I had one.

Famously, the entire corpus of Jane Austen.

and then the vampire bad boy and the werewolf bad boy fight over me while I sit there and wait to be taken by the winner, and the vampire wins, but the werewolf is okay because he finds someone else, then the vampire marries me

You’ve got Wickham/Churchill/Willhoughby/Henry Crawford as the werevolves to the vampires Darcy/Knightley/Ed Ferrars-Brandon/Ed Bertram.

Maybe what you consider "basic storytelling rules" are actually male character archetype rules?

No, there is a female version of the hero's journey. It is not quite the same, notably the struggle tends to be more internal, but it exists.

Women have recurring mythic structures based on their own experiences too.

The recent feminist attempts to associate a queer style rejection of all structure and in particular of the causality structure of storytelling is not a woman thing, it is a feminist thing. And it's not even really that popular in its own circles.

The best depiction of the heroine's journey is, unironically, the schlocky Princess Diary movie, which plays it so straight that it is practically canonical. A awkward but virtuous heroine discovers her inner beauty and refinement and prevails over circumstances to end up with a good man. She overcomes her own insecurities and the judgements of others to become a princess in heart as well as in fact.

And this is an internal journey, for the most part: complementary to the masculine hero. If you watch media that women genuinely like to consume (like magical girl anime and Disney princess movies) the fighting and bluster is largely secondary to the dramatic arcs of feminine self-realization.

The perversion happens when you combine the superficial aspects of the masculine journey with the contemplating-one-navel nature of the feminine one. If you're a supercompetent girlboss you have no virtues to realize in the feminine sense or to learn in the masculine sense. Stagnancy. The only arc that is possible is 'the world doesn't recognize how awesome I am, and so it must suffer'. This narcissistic plot is utterly repugnant and is rejected by all but the most hidebound ideologues.

I don't know if this will meet your strict criteria - it runs on the "basest cringe urges" of its author for sure - but I will not pass up an opportunity to recommend Unsounded. A rock-solid epic fantasy doorstopper, except it's a full-color graphic novel created by one person. Sure, attempts at these things are a dime a dozen; this is one that pulled it off.

(I will caution patience with Sette early on, though.)

Unsounded is great. Alderode is a ethnat police state with strict castes, Cresce is a child-sacrificing horror communist monarchy, and Sharteshane is the worst of Dickesian Victorian capitalist apathy.

How can you care for anyone, in such a soul crushing world?

Without spoiling anything, I think Cope answers that question quite well.

Seconding Unsounded. I haven't caught up in a couple years, but the first arc was absolutely fantastic. Also, I would argue Sette is amazing from the very start; I get that people might think of her as a "girl boss", given that she's a... girl(?) and is certainly bossy, but the thing is that her confidence is very obviously artificial, and that while she is in fact quite competent in a variety of ways from the start, the gap between her competence and the situation she's stuck in is immediately obvious, and quite stark. Also, the rest of the characters, male and female, are really, really well done. Duane is amazing as a portrait of a man of principles slowly being ground down by an unprincipled world.

Also, Kill Six Billion Demons, which I likewise am a couple years behind on, but was amazing as far as I've read.

This is a good to catch up with it. The epilogue just finished yesterday (for Unsounded proper: the second half will have a new title and begin in January.)

Interestingly, also seems to be a Kickstarter in progress right now.

It's really hard to tell what you are asking for specifically - are you asking for no romance at all? That's hard! Stories of any kind usually jam in a romance element because it is a "cheap" way to add additional appeal. Stories written for women or by women are more likely to do this because women are generally more interested in people, it's usually only hyper-masculine coded stories and themes that avoid any romance at all and even most war/military properties will find a way to slide in a romance element, even something close to explicitly homoerotic like Top Gun.

I've been on an anime binge recently so:

Full Metal Alchemist - written by a woman, most people can't tell.

Dan Da Dan - written by a man, many would guess the writer is a woman. Has lots to appeal to women and to men. Has a cute teenage romance that even some of my gym bros enjoy.

The Apothecary Diaries - written by a woman, clearly teenage girl fantasy elements but still enjoyable for many who hate that. Female lead has "super powers" but is helpless at the appropriate times and weird with significant character flaws. So yeah "basest" urges of women, maybe? But also illustrates that if you do a good job who cares. Same thing with hypermasculine product that everyone loves if it is good enough.

Now all three of those are Eastern so yes a possible theme here is The Message tanking artistic product, so to take it in another direction - how about Shrinking* and Ted Lasso? Two modern comedies with low levels of romance elements, strong female characters who aren't perfect (even the literal girl bosses), strong female coding in the form of lots of feelings discussion, therapy culture, and so on.

Non-slop and um, quality slop? still exist.

*only seen season 1 of Shrinking.

I'm more trying to make a point that stories about women/by women have been written that can be enjoyed by humans of whatever gender, this isn't utterly uncharted territory where artists have to build everything from scratch.

I like my anime by ex-hentai artists, desperately trying and failing not to cross the eros line. (Hellsing/Freezing)

Gargantia of the Verdurous Planet. Though admittedly he doesn’t try very hard.

I kind of feel that there’s a recent crop of writers who actually suffer the opposite problem: no romance at all, ever. Which feels very… inhuman? The human experience is such that at least some kind of attraction is bound to come up in any developed world covering any significant stretch of time. Even more so for teen protagonists, but hardly exclusively. So it feels weird when these stories don’t bother, either, possibly because writing good romance is admittedly at least a little difficult.

As an example there’s a very noticeable divide in the manga/manhua world between boy audience and girl audience fictions. It’s increasingly common that the guy oriented ones either play the typical harem-flirty route, where everyone is interested but the main character never commits, or increasingly never being it up at all, focusing on other power fantasy aspects or simply going all in on visuals and violence. Depressing, really, that commitment is so rare, and that many relationships (even friendships) are either one-way, or trivialized with no real conflict.

Blood+. The main character has multiple love interests (sort of) but the story is both intensely focused on her attachments to the world in general (brothers, father, friends and other more spoilery ones) and an excellent globe-trotting thriller.

Little House on the Prairie is a classic.

Well, see some of my recs. Most of them follow that formula and show character growth in the female protagonist. Whether individually they suit your tastes, I can't say, but a lot of the complaints about Disney and romantasy just aren't that applicable to the entire field of published genre works. (And I do recommend stepping outside of genre to broaden your horizons.)

Sailor Moon, but there's a reason that people point to anime as being insulated from woke influence.

Sailor Moon is too old for that anyway. It finished in '97.

Crystal?

Oh. I never heard about that (whereas I vaguely recall watching the first anime, probably while I was preschool-aged).

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