questions to ask yourself re: your female characters

[harborshore]

I'm getting a little tired, is the thing. Because I'm not fond of reading fic and being blindsided by the only woman appearing being an evil doctor or a shrewish girlfriend or, for that matter, the understanding girlfriend who gets out of the picture in order to further the love of our two heroes. Or the only girl dying. Or--you know. (Note: none of these examples are taken from a specific story. That's actually part of the problem--they're tropes. And I keep seeing them and many others and I'm so, so tired.)

I realize that it's hard. I realize our culture premiers the Stories of white dudes. I realize fandom is prone to writing m/m, and there is nothing wrong with that. I'm not asking for everyone to start writing femmeslash, no matter how happy that would make me. No, I'm asking for something much smaller.

As usual, I'm fine with being disagreed with: these are my opinions and I'm definitely wrong sometimes. I would ask that discussion is polite and respectful, with all that that implies.



1. Are there any? Any at all?

And I'm not just talking about the main characters--if you're writing Bob/Brian or Brendon/Spencer or Pete/Patrick or Frank/Gerard, I realize that unless you're writing genderswap, they'll be dudes. But it's worth it to look at the surrounding cast and see if all of them are men. Because the world doesn't actually look like that. Truth: I've had people tell me they stay away from stories about women because fandom is their escape from sexism. The thing is, erasure is nothing like enlightenment.

2. Are they the villains?

Believe it or not, if a story has, say, twelve characters, and the two women that appear are both evil/mean/careerist moms who don't care about their kid/abusive/or what have you, that looks a little weird. And it's really hard to read without flinching.

3. Are they the catalyst for the relationship of the two dudes?

This one, hmm. It's about what their purpose is in the story. I'm not saying the best friend of one of the guys can't go, "Call him, idiot," but there's a fine line between helping out a friend and existing solely to get the guys together. It's (in my head) especially problematic if they're dating one of the dudes already and then go, "No, I love you, of course it's okay for you to date him too." Meanwhile they're not interested in the second guy romantically, they're not portrayed as polyamorous, and their relationship with their boyfriend in question is largely absent from the story. That--it's not fair to them. It's fairly possible to deal with existing girlfriends in a way that doesn't suck, promise. And I'm not talking about OT3s, here, I'm talking about two relationships that intersect in a way that makes the woman unimportant.

4. Are they Bad Mothers?

Someone very smart once said to me that if a story explicitly tells us that it's fine for women to not want children but implicitly tells us that anyone who doesn't want a child is a bad person, then the explicit stuff matters less, because what we're shown is that people should want children. Note that I don't think that it's necessarily bad to write about a woman who doesn't want children or who is an actual bad parent, but maybe make sure that's not just counterpointed with dudes who want children and who are good parents?

5. Are they damsels in distress? Do they exist to provide the hero with an object to rescue? Do they have agency?

These ones should be self-explanatory: it's about whether the women can act instead of being acted upon, it's about whether they have a story independent of the heroes.

6. Are they people?

Because you know what? Sometimes I get to a female character in a story and I don't feel like I'm reading about a person, I'm reading about a caricature. There's the Scene Girl, there's the Dumb Blond, there's the Evil and Controlling Mom, there's the girl who exists to be supportive...so ask yourself, are they people?

I'm not saying this is a complete list (feel free to add more in comments), and it's possible I'll add others later when I think of them. Just, please, write me some women that don't make me flinch.

Comments

[nokomis305.livejournal.com]

Yes, this!

I think the worst offender is kind of the Super Understanding Girlfriend who just shoos her serious boyfriend off into the arms of the gay sex, because, what? That's not to say it can't be handled gracefully or anything, but the fact that it's become a TROPE is alarming to me. (In a lot of ways I actually prefer Magical Girlfriend/WIfe-less Verses, because at least then you can picture them happily having their own love affairs in the wild blue yonder. Sigh!)

But I wish that there were more bandom writers embracing the awesome girls we have, not least of which because some of them are my FAVORITES and I want to read about them.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

That's not to say it can't be handled gracefully or anything, but the fact that it's become a TROPE is alarming to me. (In a lot of ways I actually prefer Magical Girlfriend/WIfe-less Verses, because at least then you can picture them happily having their own love affairs in the wild blue yonder. Sigh!)

Right! Well, I hesitate to say I like it when the girlfriends are entirely out of the picture, but I get your point--at least there's no offensive breakup OR shooing-the-boys-into-each-others'-arms. And that way they're still people. Sometimes they all get romantically fulfilling solutions. I love AUs that do this, oh, like belladonnalin's (I think) Jamia/Lyn-Z AU where Lyn-Z and Gerard date before he gets together with Frank--but then the story turns to her falling for Jamia. WIN.

Yeah. No, seriously.

[nokomis305.livejournal.com]

I think the thing that annoys me the most is that the girls tend to get treated like doormats in that trope, and I'd personally rather just not see that. Why can't ALL writers manage to characterize everyone in their fic, not just boys? Which is the real issue for me there.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely. No doormats, please, it's enormously tiresome. I realize I possibly wasn't entirely clear--it's just that what happens when you write the girlfriends out is that often you end up with a story with no women at all, and that's also aggravating. In a different way.

Why can't ALL writers manage to characterize everyone in their fic, not just boys? Which is the real issue for me there. Right? It's actually NOT THAT HARD. *sulks*

[blindmouse.livejournal.com]

Well, I hesitate to say I like it when the girlfriends are entirely out of the picture

I actually do like this, but that's my RPF issues trumping my gender issues. It doesn't apply to Lindsey or Ashlee or Z, or anybody who's a fan-beloved figure, but wives and girlfriends who aren't public figures? I am completely comfortable writing them out of the narrative. I'm not fannish about these women, I don't love them, so I have no business appropriating them for my fic. (That's a pretty personal justification for writing RPF, but, you know.) I especially don't see a justification for including them in the story for the purpose of having them break up with or be broken up with by their RL partner, no matter how well it's done. That just ... feels kind of mean.

In general, obviously: Woot, this post ♥

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was definitely thinking of Lindsey when I said it--it's, you know, not entirely uncommon (less so now) to write her out of canon-based Frank/Gerard stories. And yet I'm still happier with that than I am about divorce!fic--which happens a lot with Alicia, for instance, who IS a public figure, and it's not that I don't think divorce!fic should never be written, it's just that, yes, it's a trope, and she's usually not treated well in that scenario. The problem with writing the girlfriends out (and I agree with your non-public figures clause, in general,) is that then there are often no other women in the story, so then you're back at 1.

♥