KA Applegate - a feminist?

[Darth Zakryn]

I know. The whole point of this was just to see if KA really wanted a female leader but only because of that person's gender, which to me feels wrong. It's like saying I only want a Cherokee person in office cuz I'm part Cherokee. KNOW before you judge them it what I'm trying to see. Aborting post now.

[LisaCharly]

But she's creating these characters, so she's making her female characters competent. I'd like to see an Asian woman as president but not enough to vote for a female Asian candidate solely on that characteristic. However, if I were writing a work of fiction, why not? It's not like I can't write her as completely capable and awesome too.

[TobiasMasonPark]

     Some people (TMP) write their female characters with too much power...So much that the other male characters are a little terrified of her

[AmberKatira]

Just something to throw out there.  While you certainly want to choose anyone you vote for based on abilities and political views and such, choosing to make one of the major figures in your story a female is a "feminist" thing to do.  It's a statement not only about a woman's ability to make it to that kind of position, but about society's acceptance of her ability and power.  She's saying she believes we can and are moving forward to a world where gender equality is much more of a reality.

Recently, we've all seen that a woman could have a very good shot at the presidency.  Not so much the case in the 90s.

[Terenia]

I find this topic interesting, considering that most of the female figureheads of Animorphs were secondary characters. You have Edriss (who, despite being Yeerk, clearly identified as female), the mayor/governer, the brief passing mention of the president in #54, etc. However, the main roles of power throughout the series were, in fact, held by males. Let's look at the list:

Alloran: Before he was disgraced he was a well-known and powerful military commander.
Esplin 9466: Identifies as male, is a powerful leader in the Yeerk Empire.
Elfangor: One of the most trusted leaders and heroes of the Andalite military (which is almost exclusively male)
Jake: (Rather successful) Leader of the Animorphs.
James: Leader of the Auxiliaries.


....and really, that's just the tip of the ice berg. There were MANY male leadership roles throughout Animorphs, and it's actually a bit unnerving to see that as soon as a female is placed in a similar role, even as a background character, it automatically turns into a feminist statement.

[Darth Zakryn]

Wow, Amber, you're right! Yeah! Well personally I'm all for equality too (for ALL groups) but also for fairness too, even if I contradict myself at times. It's still one of my core beliefs.

[Bonzer]

"The whole point of this was just to see if KA really wanted a female leader but only because of that person's gender, which to me feels wrong."

 I feel that those instances were her attempts to show her ideal, which she was easily able to do in a fictional world - and her ideal was a more representation world, with more equal power.  It's very easy to do that in a fictional world, with characters we've never seen before - she wasn't picking from a pre-made bunch of people, grabbing the first female one and going "Ah, she'll do, because she's female, moohaha! AT LAST MY NEFARIOUS PLAN IS IN MOTION!"

If she'd written about male presidents, would you have assumed that this was a statement that male politicians should be voted for for their sex, or that they should be assumed to be competent based purely on their sex? 

I mean, is it so unbelievable that a woman would be intelligent enough to be president that it has to be some interfering, shoehorning process for an author to have such a thing in their world?

(And yes, I absolutely agree she's feminist.  A lot of people are feminists but just don't like using the label - whether she calls herself a feminist I don't know.)