Strong Female Characters

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AshleyEpidemic

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Funny. I trained mine to fight space aliens.

That is awesome.

But as far as anime(Japanese movies too) and strong female characters go, I have noticed a slight trend. Some of the strongest, most knowledgeable women are often physically the weakest. And I'm not talking girly punch, but physically drained from illness or something of the sort. Not always the most rounded characters, but interesting.
 

Buffysquirrel

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Is slut okay?

If you weren't so cool I'd thwap you!

We still need a new test. One that focuses on characters and how they are portrayed rather than something arbitrary.

Seriously? Seriously, you are going to refer to a test that measures whether two women ever talk about anything but men as arbitrary? Dude. Not cool.
 

kuwisdelu

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If you weren't so cool I'd thwap you!

Well, considering the backstory for one girl in a short story I'm currently working on is that she's uncomfortable about her sexual identity after getting slut-shamed early on in college after confiding an interest in BDSM to a "friend" of hers... it was easiest to just use the word "slut," when referring to the rumors her "friend" spread. She's a virgin, actually...
 

Mr Flibble

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Seriously? Seriously, you are going to refer to a test that measures whether two women ever talk about anything but men as arbitrary? Dude. Not cool.

Dudette, as it happens

But yeah. It's so damned easy to get around, it's almost meaningless. Shouldn't we concentrate on what the women actually do. Who they are?

Like I have said, repeatedly, the test is a great starting point, something to make you think. But it has no bearing on the actual portrayal of women.
 

Buffysquirrel

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Like I have said, repeatedly, the test is a great starting point, something to make you think. But it has no bearing on the actual portrayal of women.

No way am I using Dudette!

But yeah, it does have a bearing on the actual portrayal of women. It indicates that they are written as having men as the focus of their existence.
 
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Ken

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... weak characters, like Hamlet, are far more appealing to me. They also seem more real, compared to their counterparts.
 

Mr Flibble

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That it's easier for lesbian characters to pass the test? That was your point?


No, that's it's easy to write stupid, venal portrayals of women (lesbians excepted in this particular instance, though that still seems,...er pretty bad dialogue) and pass the test. It doesn't account for women's actual role/characterisation/importance in the story at all.


Great stories with strong characters have been written with a woman not talking to another about a man. (Or with them discussing what a sexist dick he is. :D)

Stories have been written with two women, written as cardboard cutout nobodies whose opinions, fuck, life, means shit, talking about something so stereotypical, yet not a man, it makes me want to spork my eyes out

I'd rather have real women, cheers. Whether they talk to another woman in the plot, or not.

ANd i'm not saying the test is too hard. I'm sayin it's arbitrary. Hell I have whole weeks where the only female I talk to is my daughter (she don't count, remember?) does that me me not applicable to tell a story about? DP I fail as a feminist? Purely because of my living arrangements?
 

Alexandra Little

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The Bechdel test is an imperfect measurement, but it is at least something. Alien passes the test, and is absolutely fantastic on top of it. Skyfall passes the test, but is frankly not very nice to its female characters.
 

Buffysquirrel

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I'd rather have real women, cheers. Whether they talk to another woman in the plot, or not.

I've never known a real woman who didn't talk to other women. Although come to think of it, presumably that's because they'd never talk to me.
 

Mr Flibble

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I've never known a real woman who didn't talk to other women. Although come to think of it, presumably that's because they'd never talk to me.

I tend not to - purely because I don't come into contact with them, except at work (well, okay, partly because I have yet to find a female as obsessed with rugby as I am)

Does this make me not female? Not a good character? What? Am I going to be judged on how many women I talk to a day or something?
 

Buffysquirrel

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I tend not to - purely because I don't come into contact with them, except at work (well, okay, partly because I have yet to find a female as obsessed with rugby as I am)

Does this make me not female? Not a good character? What?


I suppose it depends on your definition of talk. I'd say we were talking....
 

kuwisdelu

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No, that's it's easy to write stupid, venal portrayals of women (lesbians excepted in this particular instance,

I already pointed out they're bi. Bi people don't get no respect. :(

though that still seems,...er pretty bad dialogue)

And now I'm deeply offended.

So. Y'all who think the Bechdel Test is *too hard*?

Reconsider. Look at how you can and do better.

Because until then, y'all are just whining.

Well, I do think the POV constraints of fiction can make it unfair. It was designed for movies.

I've never known a real woman who didn't talk to other women. Although come to think of it, presumably that's because they'd never talk to me.

I have several female friends who are mostly friends with guys and don't really have any female friends.
 

Mr Flibble

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I suppose it depends on your definition of talk. I'd say we were talking....


BY 'talk' I kinda reckoned 'opened your mouth to communicate'

But if I didn't have internet, my IRL interactions would be the same. Except for work, and seeing my Mum once a week and my daughter..yeah, mostly guys. So?

I fail the test IRL? Shows how easy it is to fail it. I still consider myself a 'real' woman.
 

Buffysquirrel

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BY 'talk' I kinda reckoned 'opened your mouth to communicate'

But if I didn't have internet, my IRL interactions would be the same. Except for work, and seeing my Mum once a week and my daughter..yeah, mostly guys. So?

I fail the test IRL? Shows how easy it is to fail it. I still consider myself a 'real' woman.

Seriously, you don't consider interacting with your mother and your daughter to be interacting with women? Eh. I spend most of my time with two men and three cats, but I still communicate with women....
 

Buffysquirrel

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I think I am going to tiptoe out of this thread and find a friendly wall. *hugs eqb on way out*

No, that is so not a flounce. It is an ecnuolf. The opposite of a flounce!
 

Mr Flibble

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Seriously, you don't consider interacting with your mother and your daughter to be interacting with women?

Well I see my Mum for about a few hours a week (and, er, well she don't interact the way she did. Not after the catastrophic stroke and all), and as as stated upthread, kids don't count.

Does this make me 'not proper woman character'?
So someone tell me, why is it impossible to write a story where two named women talk to each other about something other than a guy?
No one said that?

I'm pretty sure I said, at the least, it would depend on the story - for my current one it wouldn't work. For others, it may well do. I don't feel I have to strain my story to fit, provided the female characters that do appear are well rounded, and, well, people.
 

kuwisdelu

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So someone tell me, why is it impossible to write a story where two named women talk to each other about something other than a guy?

Well, as I pointed out before, if it's first person and the narrator is a male, then any conversation between two women will necessarily include a man as well, unless it's eavesdropping. I wondered aloud whether that disqualified such a conversation or not.
 

ap123

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My head is spinning, catching up on this thread. I haven't read much SF/F in a gazillion years, so I can't comment on the trends or characters.

I also haven't been around AW enough to know who's male, let alone who's white, so I'm definitely not going there.

I can say that in romance, there has to be more to the plot/story than the romance. The too stupid to live heroine is not a character that attracts a positive response from anyone anymore. External and internal conflicts have to have more to them, and the goal is resolving those conflicts >>>only then clearing the way for the HEA. Is the concept of HEA a worthy debate unto itself in today's world? Sure it is, but for now, there are a lot of women out there who believe in the possibility, or plain old enjoy the fantasy.

For myself, my soapbox is women who tear down other women, are intolerant of different choices, and look at others as "less than" for choosing traditional/nontraditional roles, having children/not having children, single/married, etc. IMO, it grows from the same weed patch of writers who put down other writers for genre fiction...or literary fiction...or anime...

An awesome female character? Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney.
 

CrastersBabies

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Women can be strong without being bitchy. My issue is that studios and producers aren't willing to give women the same dark/badass roles that they give the men. Take The Dark Knight series, for example. Bruce Wayne goes through HELL. I mean hell.

But, we're not allowed to do those things to a woman. Instead, we get Elektra who has to care for a kid (because all women are nurturing, don't you know). I see so many narratives that do this.

We can't have a woman THAT badass, she needs a mute kid in tow that only speaks when he needs to save the day.

Romantic comedies never help. It's always about finding love to complete your life. Superhero stories have the "nag" who bitches because Spiderman is late for dinner and she's sitting at that table alone and the meatloaf is cold. She stomps her feet and says, "I can't do this anymore."
Then, the bad guy swoops in, kidnaps her, and she's no longer the nag, she's the damsel in distress. And of COURSE, because he saves her, she "gets it" now. He's a superhero.

It's stupid. So much of it is stupid.
 

ArachnePhobia

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eqb said:
So someone tell me, why is it impossible to write a story where two named women talk to each other about something other than a guy?

In every conversation in the book, you mean? I admit I'm a bit unclear on the parameters here, and I could see getting upset if every conversation between a book's female characters is about or name-drops a male character.

However, any mention of any man for any reason? A conversation where a team of Superheroines discuss the best way to capture Igor the Cackling Mad Scientist fails because Igor is a male villain? The captain complaining the barista who made her coffee got too much sugar in it fails if that barista is ever explicitly revealed to be a teen boy? The boss says, "Throw that report on Jeff's desk before you clock out; I need to look it over tonight," and she fails because Jeff is male? In those cases, it's impossible because it's just as unrealistic that the characters wouldn't know or interact with a single male person as it would be if they didn't know or interact with a single female person. There's no good reason for the boss to avoid mentioning Jeff by name to her co-worker. There's no reason the superheroines wouldn't leap into action to stop a male evildoer, and they wouldn't talk around him if they were plotting an assault.
 
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