u/Specialist-Young5753

I am in the process of working on a story that explores, what one can call: the anthropology of lower classes, which includes a strong representation of many demographics rarely represented, What they go through, their views, philosophy etc; in a late capitalist world (it's also dystopian, lite-cyberpunk).

While I explore the dynamics related to their reality with several characters, and one of those characters commits a very horrible act, then has to move from it towards redemption.

This story has been done before, but at least for me, it's been done in a trivial, semi-metaphoric way, he or she did the very bad thing, yet rarely see the consequences, or we focus on how he feels in a fucked up way, that is neglectful to the victim.

There is also the whole: "killing is less worse than rape" approach, so you get a lot of stories with MC doing literal genocide then stoically forgives himself as he looks in the distance.

So, I had this desire to make a very unredeemable character who commit both rape and murder to a very vulnerable person, then still try to be better and do good / move on yet still hating himself for what he did.

Trying to keep the reader or the viewer completely enveloped in a sense of discomfort: you don't get a hegemonic, false sense of moral comfort, because if you ask me: no one on this earth has a clean conscious, just people who convince themselves they are innocent, while still benefiting from corrupt systems. While we directly blame people who do horrible things, despite being dealt a bad hand; Not everyone could afford being fully moral / live a fully legal life, either suffering from something systemic or trauma that motivates their bad actions.

That idea is not new, but its level of discomfort is rarely explored in mainstream media, I want to make a full story about it.

Now, my question is: How can I approach the story events or structure it, how can you make a character do the worst thing one can do and then take him on a redeemable journey, while being respectful to the victim?

Recently, it seems as if we are reevaluating our approach to history, which moved from "look at this epic historical figure" to "are the actions of this person moral or should deserving of our praise?"

Which makes me question:

Why do we happen to divide the "female" gender from all the horrible actions directly taken by women?

• Nazi women, like Irma Grese, known by prisoners as the "Hyena of Auschwitz because of her brutality.
• 1300s Mongolian Khatuns (queens) who support and overlooked the mass rape and killing of countless women across Eurasia.
• Martha Washington and the many other female slave owners who built empires of the back of slavery.
• "Bloody Mary" (Mary I of England) who burning nearly 300 Protestants, including 56 women, at the stake between 1555 and 1558 to restore Catholicism.
• Lynndie England: A U.S. Army soldier involved in the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse (2003–2004).
• Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, who is minister during the Rwandan genocide, who encouraged rape and murder of other women.
• Jiang Qing, Wife of Mao Zedong who helped drive ideological purges, persecution, and mass suffering.
• Maria Licciardi who controlled a major Camorra clan in the 1990s, she ran prostitution, drug trafficking, and extortion networks.
• Griselda Blanco, they made a Tv show about her, showing her going from an underdog that deals with sexism, to murdering little kids.
• Cleopatra VII who was an inbred, disabled woman, last member of a colonial line, and killed her own brother.
• And ofc the countless women who did not participate directly with horrible actions taken by men but still reaped the benefits from those same horrific actions, like Marie Antoinette.
• Not to mention the 99% of women that have ever lived with internalized sexism, who reinforced patriarchal concepts and gender roles on both women and men.

Why when men induce violence in society we label it as patriarchy? and when women do, it's never taken seriously? Not to mention sexual violence taken by women.

Why does the same sexist filter that we have over history, which minimizes their vital role of women in building culture and collective thought also exempt them from their share of probably EQUAL levels of horrific actions taken by men?

We are more likely to trust women because they are suppose to be nurturing and vulnerable, etc; but that is just a social construct, as we have 0 scientific evidence for women being more submissive than men.

And I think that an answer like: "They were manipulated by men" is very disrespectful to women's anonymity across human history but also creates a perfect loop where women cannot see themselves as one of the "bad guys" in a historical context.