For centuries, women have had it tough, to say the least. And certainly there are many miles to travel and many years to go before men and women are commonly viewed as equal animals. In some sections of our society, women's equality has taken much longer to catch up to the rest. Women's sports are shunted off to Sunday mornings on ESPN2. Hollywood roles for women are usually one of four characters: housewife/girlfriend for male hero, hooker with a heart of gold, sexually threatening villainness, or sexually unthreatening female buddy. Given that more than half the world happens to be populated by the fairer sex, I find it difficult to believe three billion women can be divided into those four categories. High-ranking executive and political positions are still occupied almost exclusively by men, which puzzles me greatly (as it is painfully obvious that those men have screwed things up quite badly for us all).

However, it is in the ranks of fantasy and science fiction that women have received some of the worst treatments. Remember Conan the Barbarian? When he wasn't kicking somebody's ass, he was sleeping with some young maiden. Any Robert Heinlein book is almost embarrassing in its callous regard for the opposite sex. It's like genre writers are afraid of women, keeping them in rigidly stereotyped roles, never allowing them the freedom to be three-dimensional and human. And when a female character is given a prominent role, she seems so male that it becomes obvious that the author merely slapped a female name on a male character.

This is why Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is so exciting and promising. The most powerful and interesting characters in the books are women. If anything, the males are the ones who are stereotyped. Don't believe me? All right, let's look at this in more detail.

Aes Sedai are women. For the first five books, Aes Sedai are pretty much the only folks who can channel. Men? Ah, the men who can channel go insane. Anyway, the fact that Aes Sedai are almost the only ones throwing magic around means that most of the truly powerful characters in this world are women. And I'm not just talking about visible power, but acknowledged power. How many times have we been told that anyone, any King or Queen, any merchant or farmer, would come if summoned to bow to the Amyrlin Seat? The Amyrlin commands more nations by proxy than anyone else (until Rand al'Thor, of course). Speaking of commanding nations, there's Berelain, First of Mayene; Tenobia, Queen of Saldaea; Morgase, Queen of Andor; Alliandre, Queen of Ghealdan; Tylin, Queen of Altara.

Rulers are just rulers, though; what rulers do means little when compared to what the society does as a whole. Take the Two Rivers. Who calls the shots, the Village Council or the Women's Circle? They both do. One doesn't rule over the other; they work together to make decisions. Those decisions aren't made without plenty of conflict, wheedling and needling, but what's so odd about that? The important thing is that the women aren't told what to do. The men and women figure it out together. Then there's the Aiel. Who calls the shots there, the Clan Chiefs or the Wise Ones? Again, it's a question of working together and knowing who is better at what. For battle, let the men beat their heads over it. For the future of their people, the women can puzzle that out. We can't forget about the Maidens of the Spear, who fight just as well as the men, and have their own curious rituals and customs to keep their female identities separate from the male.

With the Sea Folk, there is no question that women rule that society. Women do all the important negotiations, women are the Windfinders that call the winds to aid their ships, women give the orders and take the responsibility. Similarly, the Seanchan empire seems to be a strong matriarchy, with the Empress as the ultimate ruler, and the sul'dam/damane combination utilized as the weapon of choice. Finally, the Kin have wielded their own brand of power, even if it was behind-the-scenes and very low-key.

All this is evidence that Robert Jordan actually took the time to think about the role of women in his books, and what he could do to make them as three-dimensional as possible given the huge cast of characters. It is true that in the beginning, Jordan relied on some literary shorthand to keep the young women separate, and from time to time, he pulls that shorthand out again in tight spots. What I'm talking about is little bits like Nynaeve always tugging on her braid, Elayne with her regal air and slightly upturned nose, and Min dressed in boy's clothing. Egwene has turned out to be the most fully-developed young character, mostly because of her Aiel training, which gave her the room she needed to develop a personality. You can usually tell what characters the author is truly fond of, and I'd say his favourites are Egwene and Mat. Yet as the pages go by, we are granted more insight into each character, and Nynaeve, Elayne, and Min have become well-rounded and just slightly unpredictable.

I would say, though, that the three biggest challenges for Jordan have been Moiraine, Faile, and Aviendha. In Moiraine's case, not only was Jordan dealing with a mature woman with sides of her personality that he simply could not reveal, but she was also the Gandalf-figure, the guide who must help and guard the young heroes and heroines. That's a lot of work for any writer to handle, and I would imagine Jordan spent the most time planning her character so he wouldn't get himself caught later on. When you consider that Moiraine's role has, in fantasy literature, been almost always played by a man, you have to give respect to Jordan for being true to the story and the world he created.

Faile is a mercurial character; one minute she's all roses and honey, the next she's giving Perrin a short jab to the ribs in a jealous snit. Because this behaviour is necessitated more by the machinations of the plot than the possibilities of her own character, Faile's jealousy can get annoying very quickly. She needs to be jealous to create dramatic tension between her, Berelain, and Perrin (because the Light knows Perrin can't have even one week of happiness). Jordan has tried to keep those situations off-balance enough to get through them without a hitch, but here I believe he falls prey to the stereotype trap. Her character makes a lot of male readers say, "Isn't that just like a woman?", and that's not quite the reaction we're looking for here. Jordan has been playing things a little too cute with Faile; what she needs are a few point-of-view narrations from her to give us a sense of what direction she's coming from. Given that she's off with Perrin and Berelain to Ghealdan, perhaps Jordan will give her those opportunities.

Now, Aviendha... At first, all we knew about her was that she was pissed. Attitude. Anger. Of course, we subsequently found out why, but in the initial scenes, Jordan lays it on a little thick, and it takes a while before Aviendha rebounds. My favourite scenes with her were the ones just before and just after the Far Snows Dance, and her adventures in Ebou Dar, in which we get a couple of POV narrations that help us understand the turmoil and obstacles she must battle through on a daily basis. I am impressed with Jordan's desire to completely underplay the whole Far Snows Dance incident, which when you think about it, would seem like a big deal (you lost your virginity to the Dragon Reborn?!? The destroyer of our world?!? So, was he any good?). But what Jordan does is follow the lead of his character, Aviendha, who really doesn't want to talk about it. Aviendha is an interesting character because she starts out as a warrior and transforms herself, tames herself into a peaceful Wise One. (This is akin to Keanu Reeves' journey from the action hero in "Speed" to the romantic wuss in "A Walk In The Clouds", but with less media hype)

Of the minor characters, perhaps the most fascinating are Cadsuane and Verin, two women of much mystery and bottomless depths of character. Both are very similar to Moiraine in terms of following their own agendas and stubbornly sticking to them, but they are more patient, more careful. And I've never seen two characters who could keep anyone off-balance as consistently as those two.

Robert Jordan has done well in his consistent portrayal of women in WOT. There is still room for improvement, but as I said at the start of the show, there are many miles to travel and many years to go. Rome wasn't built in a day, etcetera, etcetera. Just fill in your own favourite cliche here. It does seem amazing that every woman is 'beautiful', but on the other hand, there are a lot of good-looking guys, too. And besides, it's been my observation that there are a great deal of attractive people on this earth, if you know what to look for.