i'm up to the third book, and nothing overly graphic has happened. And not to the main characters. Plus when it does happen it's pretty clear from the narrative that the author is portraying it as a horrifying war crime. And several of the women characters have gotten to voice their anger and pain at how much they're devalued in a patriarchal society.

It's far from perfect, but my personal litmus test about this issue is to look at the male heroes. So far, none of them have raped any women under the excuse that "it's set in the middle ages, it was okay back then" that a lot of fantasy writers seem to use. As a matter of fact, they display an amount of respect for women that I'd consider unrealistic for most men born in this century. More importantly, none of them have engaged in much passive misogyny and when they do, the women around them call them out on it and are backed up by the narrative.

I'm not in George RR Martin's head, but I honestly think that he's trying to explicitly show that misogyny is a bad thing in these books. It's far from perfect, but much better than what I usually find in fantasy written by men (and some women, sadly).

Now that I recce'd him on the grounds of not being super-faily in regards to women's issues, watch me find an interview in which he brings out the fail.