The Atlantic explores it.
From the story...
It's true that the early fairy tales that influenced fantasy giants like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis may not resonate with modern women, with their tales of maidens saved by their patience and virtue from forced marriages, accusations of monster births, and devilish mothers-in-law. And Tolkien and Lewis didn't exactly write inspiring female heroines.
But as fantasy matured as a 20th-century genre, authors began to use stories about magic and chivalry not as a way to reconcile women to waiting for better outcomes, but to imagine claiming kinds of power that were previously off-limits to them. Bravery and initiative shattered class barriers in early fantasy stories, turning poor boys and hobbits into knights of the realm and saviors of their worlds. It's only natural that fantastical settings should, at some point, apply those same meritocratic principles to gender. If it's true, as Margalit Fox wrote in the Times this weekend in an obituary of science-fiction author Joanna Russ, that "the science fiction writer has the privilege of remaking the world," fantasy writers often transfigure tropes from the past as a way to prepare readers for the future. Take Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness quartet, a fairly typical chronicle of a hero's journey from untrained novice to champion of the realm, with the twist that the hero is a woman. What makes Alanna so effective as a fantasy heroine is that it isn't just the people around her who need to reconcile themselves to the idea that a woman could be the most talented knight in their country—Alanna has to come to terms with strengths she possesses that make her uncomfortable. Pierce recognizes that liberating women isn't just about opening up societal roles to them, it's about getting women comfortable with exercising power.
If Pierce's stories are about allowing women to stand as candidates for positions previously reserved for men, Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest stories are about upsetting conventional understandings of how women's roles work. Her fencing, spell-casting, cherries-jubilee-cooking Cimorene hires herself out as a dragon's princess to stave off boredom and an unappealing marriage, only to find herself in a society where her female keeper can end up King of the Dragons; a dwarf who can spin straw into gold runs a boarding school for the children of heroines who don't really want to be parents; and a queen is the person best equipped to prepare her son for life as an adventurer in the Enchanted Forest. A crown and an advantageous marriage need not be a set of shackles, and a plight can be an opportunity.
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