Wheel of Time Women

I've read the first 3 Wheel of Time books, and I have some issues with them. Easily the most prominent is how the women act in this book. Maybe its just the environment I grew up in, but the way women are portrayed in these books range from mildly irritating to throw-the-book-against-the-wall level aggravating. I've met no woman in real life who is remotely this unpleasant! These women (Egwene, Nynaeve, Faile ect) are just so arrogant, unprofessional, rude, childish and emotionally undisciplined that it makes me want to put down the series. The really odd part is that it seems like almost all of the women act in this same general format: one can't go more than two pages without some woman character calling one of the male characters "wool-heads," trying to bully them into being pawns, or using physical violence to get what they want. Nowhere do I see any implication that the reader is meant to perceive this as wrong or even questionable. If a guy talked to a woman character like this, there would be cries of sexism - and rightly so! The only woman character I respect and like in the series thus far is Moraine, probably because she seems to have sense of professionalism, is simply trying to do her job and actually tries to respect the people she is in charge of. Should I continue the series, or does this problem get worse?

 

Just to clarify: Your issue is that the women in the book are mean toward the men? (I've not read them, so I'm just trying to understand)

 

Essentially, yes. Also, the thing that really irks me is that it's all on such a large scale. If only one or two characters were this way, it wouldn't lessen the series for me, since some people are just unpleasant. But, almost every woman character acts like a jerk, and nobody bats an eye, apparently. The entire female gender in this series (with the exception of Moraine and Min) are practically identical; if I took an typical line about men from Nynaeve and put Egwene's name on it, you could not tell the difference! If these women existed in real life, I bet most men and women in our world would tell them to shut up. It's just really poor writing, honestly; strong women characters have been done much better in other settings and books.

 

I can understand that. Poorly written characters have the power to completely destroy a story, be they male or female. I would suggest to just not let it get to you and switch book!