From my friend The Ferrett:
Unfortunately, he made an error that I think a lot of male writers do. And that error arrived with this statement:
“Okay,” he said. “At this point, she’s been brought to a foreign land, and I need to raise the stakes so that she wants to stay here and fight for this culture. So I think she needs to get pregnant.”
Cue groans from the women in the session.
Now, I’ve observed before in that in fiction, women have one of two roles: to get raped, or get pregnant. And I think, watching my very well-intentioned friend go at it, I’ve finally understood the reason why men do this.
See, in his excitement to write a woman, he got caught up on the differences between men and women. If women can get pregnant, and I’m writing a woman, well, I should immediately start with this biological difference! That’ll be a plot that only a woman can have!
Read More…
I don’t think most male writers write females as baby-machines or rape-magnets out of malice, but mostly out of ignorance and the tendency to see male as the default, and by including women you can only give them storylines that your male characters couldn’t have. (Though I know plenty of men who could get pregnant, and a lot of females who can’t.)
The good news is, ignorance can be fixed way easier than malice. It just requires a willingness to learn, and a teacher willing to teach. As Ferrett went on to say,
The best I can do is to write honestly, and keep listening to actual female feedback to keep me on track.
Word.
gingerhaze:
Every time I write a female character for my creative writing class, my teacher asks me why I made that character female.
Inevitably he asks about the character’s sexuality/motherly instincts/how male characters feel about her being female? I guess.
And I’m just like
She’s a lady because she’s a lady
Her sexuality isn’t really important to the story at this point, and no she is not a mother
I didn’t think I had to defend this
Well, duh! Male is the default, so any time you do something “special” to a character, like make her female, you have to justify why you would add such a strange attribute. You can’t just do it for no reason. 50% of the world being female is not a legit reason. Unless her part of the story specifically requires use of a vagina*, there’s no reason for her not to be male, unless you’re looking for attention or just wanna stir shit up!
Obviously, using lots o’ sarcasm there. It’s always frustrating to hear teachers continuing to perpetuate such outdated ideas of what women in stories can be.
Men are people, and women are women. What a shitty way to see things. Why is this person a teacher?
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*As always, I know vagina does not always = woman or vice versa, but if you’re dealing with people who don’t even understand why a cis female would be included in a story not about babies or romance, complex gender is obviously not gonna be understood by them at this point in time anyway.
insistonplot asked:
I just read a story outline from a female classmate where the only female characters are a prostitute and a mother. Neither of them are redeemed and are only made important in relation to the male main character.
Do you think it’s mainly a male mindset that’s responsible for most of these kinds of stories or are both men and women circulating non-important-female-characters?
It’s the culture we live in. The male perspective is valued over the female one. So even women undervalue their own perspective and their own experience and their own entertainment value in their own writing. Which is why it’s important to keep pointing out that it’s going on, even to other women who should supposedly know this already. It’s sneaky, crawling around inside our brains like a Trematode.
Try pointing out to her that her only female characters exist to advance the male character’s plot. She is probably not even aware she’s doing it. Encourage her to find roles for female characters that advance their own plotlines. And it isn’t about sticking in a random scene with a couple women that doesn’t make sense with the rest of the story. Lots of times, there are roles that could go to either a male or female character, and we as a culture have been taught that male is the default. But if you stop and think for a while, maybe some of those default-men could be women. In fact, probably most of them! Which doesn’t mean change them all to women, and it doesn’t mean there won’t be subtle changes in dialogue, but the story can advance just fine, and the same meaning will be there.
A few weeks ago, I said:
I’m to the point where, if the only female characters in your story are prostitutes, mothers/girlfriends to the main characters, or nameless redshirts, I’m not going to read/watch it.
Because I’m tired of male writers who never think to include women in their stories unless they have to. It’s not even a malicious thing. They just kind of forget women do things that don’t involve their vaginas*. Unless the role specifically requires a female, the role by default goes to a male character. And I find this incredibly unimaginative.
But I never mentioned my exception. If you have a valid, in-story reason why you don’t have any women in your cast besides those in periphery to men, I have no issue with it. If you have a land of gay men, a story about the priesthood, a virus that turned all the women into ponies, yeah, it makes sense why none of your main characters are women.
I love reading John Scalzi’s books. I’ve always gotten the impression from him that he doesn’t just default to straight white male with every character. Which was why I was really thrown off when I started reading The God Engines. I was a quarter of the way into it, and so far, the only female character was a rook, a prostitutish role. So I tweeted:
@scalzi Are there any women in The God Engines who aren’t prostitutes? I’m getting a bit discouraged by the lack of women so far. … I just promised myself no more stories where women are only…prostitutes, girlfriends, or moms to main characters, if they’re existent at all. But I trust you.
And he replied:
@rosalarian The women in the story are definitely none of those.
@rosalarian Your assumption is that the rooks are women.
This is true. Looking back, I realized that there were absolutely no pronouns attributed the Shalle the rook. Scalzi plays the pronoun game as good as any closeted gay trying to talk about their lover at work. I acknowledged my assumption, and kept reading, because Scalzi told me to trust him.
I got to the end. If Shalle is not female, then there are no females aside from unnamed redshirts, but then that means there are queer men (or possible non-binaries), which is cool. And if Shalle is female, then the only females are prostitutes and redshirts. So I’m not sure where his assurance that “the women in the story are definitely none of those” comes into play. (I will say, though, as far as Shalle being a prostitute, the role was far more than “Shalle enters, Shalle services Tephe, Shalle exits” like a lot of prostitute roles.)
As I read, the more it made sense for this to be a womanless story. The God Engines is about a universe in which religion permeates everything. The characters are priests, bishops, and even the ship captain is part missionary. And it’s an oppressive religion to say the least. Religion is notorious for keeping women out of roles of power, and Scalzi seems to have mirrored what existed, rather than purposely neglected to add women. I can respect that. Scalzi gets a pass.
But I also feel like I shouldn’t give passes so readily. I’m tired of sitting through an entire story, wondering where my gender is, only to find at the end either a.) a reason why we were excluded or b.) there was no reason why we were excluded and I just read another book where women get the shitty end of the character stick. Men very rarely have to sit through an entire book wondering if someone from their gender is going to make an appearance. It’s frustrating, and distracting, often making it harder for me to get into a story. If you walked down a busy street for several hours and didn’t see a single woman, you’d start to notice, and you’d start to wonder why, and pretty soon you’re so preoccupied wondering where all the women went that you forget why you were walking down the street.
I guess my moral is, I wish more male writers could be good at not just writing female characters, but understanding female readers. To take into account that while this story might have a valid reason for not having female characters in it, it is being sold in a culture where most books without women in them don’t have a reason for it, and women are bound to be frustrated when they think they’re seeing that again. That maybe you can find a place for female characters long before the final act (if they’re there at all) so that female readers don’t have this worry hanging over their heads for most of the story. Just a bit more consideration for where we’re coming from.
Scalzi, I loved The God Engines. It was an awesome story, and you’re one of my favorite writers. But without your track record for always making me enjoy your work, I probably would have stopped at that 25% point, because I can’t give every writer the benefit of the doubt. You got me back because you are Scalzi. I wish you’d gotten me back because you introduced some female characters.
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*I phrase it like this not because I think woman=vagina=woman, but because writers who are clueless enough not to write women tend to be the type to equate vaginas with women, never write trans characters, and wouldn’t know trans issues if it hit them in the face.
Pretty much. It’s not like women just sat around dong nothing for all of history until recently. Chicks have been doing things, lots of things. So the attitude of “Gee, gals, I’d love to write about you, but my story is set in 1645 and as you know, women did absolutely nothing that year in the whole entire world so, I mean, my hands are tied here,” is just a weak excuse.
I actually already own 34 copies of it. Or was that a different book? Or several different books? It’s so hard to tell.
So yeah, it’s really more of a personal preference for me, that I figured other people could relate to, but wasn’t meant to be my attempt to make some kind of new Bechdel Test or anything (though sometimes in my head I think of it as the Gedris Extra Credit Question, but lesbian comic writers can’t make up all the story tests, so…) Anyways, people asked questions.
Like I said, my issue with something comes if that’s the ONLY role you can give women. There were women in the comic who weren’t prostitutes, girlfriends, or moms, and had enough screentime before their deaths to not be considered redshirts in my eyes, so he fits my earlier criteria technically. But Frank Miller is problematic in a lot of other ways. And honestly, this is all just a preference for me personally, just talking about what I like to read or not.
I’m growing tired of the idea that violent women = strong women. Like, the more violent a woman is, the more of a strong female character she is or the more feminist she is, or the less cliche she is. I’m tired of seeing “add more violence” as the solution for poorly written female characters. A cardboard cutout with a gun duct taped to her hand is still a cardboard cutout. She hasn’t gained any depth, and the gun is obviously tacked on.
Well, again, my gripe is sort of a personal one. I am gonna roll my eyes a lot less if you come up with a reason why you don’t have any female characters in your story (although many times, in historical fiction, like in historical facts, women could have made lots of contributions that just aren’t valued by the people around them). But I still am not going to read it. Because I find it personally boring.
there’s nothing wrong with being a prostitute, or a mother, or a girlfriend, or a redshirt. They’re all people, too, deserving of respect. I just take offense to guys who think this is all women can contribute to the world.
This goes beyond feminist issues or the fact that I want to see better depictions of my gender. If you, Mr. Writer, are so stuck in your own perspective that you can’t even consider maybe one of the folks who make up 51% of the world’s population might have something worthwhile to contribute to your story, then how creative can you really be? It shows a total lack of imagination to only think of guys as being interesting enough to write about, and imagination is requirement #1 of being a decent writer. It seems pretty simple to me.