Gender-flip your MC: What Happens?

Now I am laughing! But it all depends on the type of male characters one is writing

 

That's true. And it depends on the type of female characters you're writing and to what degree societal constraints are operative. A lot of people like post-gender-bias futures or alternate worlds, which can change things. Or in some cases brute force is an option - I have a backburner urban-fantasy project dealing with Valkyries and, in that case, any of those women could beat the living snot out of any of the human male characters if they wanted to (and there are no inhuman male characters). But even in their case gender is a motivator at some level (maintaining a false identity as a human female gets a little old after 900 years).

 

If I only gender-flip the protagonist, the romantic half of the plot would either disappear or become a homosexual love triangle.

If I gender-flip all three of my core characters (protagonist, her love interest and antagonist), there would probably still be the same love triangle, but it would be a man and two women, and it would change the dynamics quite a lot. And quite likely the male version of Emily would choose the female version of Joel (the antagonist), rather than the female version of Ragnar (her actual love interest). I think a man would probably perceive a woman with that sort of moody and broody personality differently than a woman would perceive a man with the same personality. And it would be a different character getting killed off at the end.

But the volcano would still erupt in the same way and after the same build-up. Because volcanoes aren't affected by gender-flipping.

 

How does the volcano feel about you saying that?

 

This does certainly reinforce a math idea I came up with

A few months ago, I mentioned that the Bechdel test is important because it's a stupidly easy test to pass, and yet a surprising number of works still go out of their way to fail. My original breakdown of the first step (2 female characters) was

When you have X number of characters, you have 2^X combinations of males/females.

2 characters: (male, male) (male, female) (female, male) (female, female)

3 characters: (male, male, male) (male, male, female) (male female male) (female male male) (male female female) (female male female) (female female male) (female, female, female)
​

1 combination fails because all of the characters are males, X of the combinations fail because you only have 1 female.

When you have 2 characters, you have a (1+2)/4 = 75% chance of failing the first step of the test as a legitimate accident of probability
When you have 3 characters, you have a (1+3)/8 = 50% chance of failing as a legitimate accident
When you have 4 characters, you have a (1+4)/16 = 32.5% chance of failing by accident
When you have 5 characters, you have a (1+5)/32 =18.75% chance of failing by accident​

Which already makes it suspicious that 40% of modern films fail the test despite so few of them having such tiny numbers of characters.

A few weeks ago, I realized re-posting this to another site that I was assuming that a given character always has to be either male or female and that the author doesn't get to choose which, so I added a third possibility "could work just as well either way" and re-did the math:

When you have X number of characters, you have 3^x combinations of "have to be male" "have to be female" "could easily be either/or"

2 characters: (male, male) (male, female) (male, either) (female, male) (female, female) (female, either) (either, male) (either, female) (either, either)​

1 combination has to fail because all of the characters have to be male, X combinations have to fail because you have one character who has to be a woman, and X combinations have to fail because you have one character who could be one or the other

When you have 2 characters, you have a (1+4)/9 ≈ 55.6% chance of having to fail as a legitimate accident of probability instead of a 75%
When you have 3 characters, you have a (1+6)/27 ≈ 25.9% chance of having to fail instead of a 50% chance
When you have 4 characters, you have a (1+8)/81 ≈ 11.1% chance of having to fail instead of a 32.5% chance
When you have 5 characters, you have a (1+10)/243 ≈ 4.5% chance of having to fail instead of an 18.75% chance​

And even ignoring the possibility of writing a non-binary character (spoiler alert: not a good idea), that still assumes an even chance of a character having to be male, having to be female, or being able to be written as either. What if there's not a 33% chance that a character can be either/or just as easily, but instead a 60% chance? or a 75% chance? Or a 90% chance?

The casts of characters that I looked at in my two stories were

Doctor Who: 2 characters had to be male, 2 characters had to be female, 1 could've gone either way

Urban Fantasy: 1 character had to be male, 2 characters had to be female, 1 could've gone either way​

Granted, the fact that my stories were 20% and 25% "Either" respectively would appear to cast doubt on the math that I based on a 33% chance of a character being "Either," but the fact remains that I was making very specific messages about gender and orientation to counter the lies that I hear in today's society, and as such my "have to be female" characters are going to be disproportionately high (40% and 50% respectively instead of 33%).

If an author brags "I don't look at gender," then I don't feel he* has that excuse. If he doesn't have a specific message about gender that he's trying to convey, then there is axiomatically no reason for him to commit to having exclusively male casts of characters. His percentage of "Either" characters should be a lot higher than my 20-25%, and if the end result is more than, say, 75% male, then perhaps he wasn't being entirely truthful the first time.

Sure, both of my "Either" characters ended up being male, but if the rest of each cast was not already 50-75% female, then I probably would've ended up writing either one as a female instead.

*(though I do feel comfortable in guessing that most of the time, such an author saying this would be a "he." Probably not 90% of them, maybe not even 75%, but nonetheless north of 50%)

Not seeing a huge problem with either one of those. Fun fact

Spoiler: Did you know...

gayness is not actually about sex?

 

Homosexuality is a less invisible trait than heterosexuality. Meaning if one were to write a homosexual love triangle, I'm betting the characters would be remembered for that rather than anything else.

 

And two of the leading guys in my own largest completed work (see signature) are a romantic couple. I want people to remember them as such.

I just didn't see the point of referring to the straight version of the triangle as being "the romantic version" and the gay version as being "the sexual version."

Sexual and romantic orientation generally overlap

The most common combination (≈80%) is heterosexual-heteroromantic
The second most common (≈6%) is homosexual-homoromantic
I personally (along with ≈3%) am asexual-aromantic​

But it isn't guaranteed: some people are bisexual-homoromantic, heterosexual-aromantic, asexual-biromantic...

I'm just not a fan of the conservative lie "All heterosexuals/bisexuals are also heteroromantic, all homosexuals are also aromantic" (or, since most of them don't like words that are that big: "straight couples make love, gay couples fu**").

Pedophiles are disproportionately likely to be straight, but the popular language of "straight is about love, gay is about sex" creates the (objectively false) idea that a young boy is in more danger of sexual predation from a random "gay=homosexual" man than a young girl is in danger of sexual predation from a random "straight=heteroromantic" man.

 

Similar to other people, the only thing that changes in any of my works is sexual/romantic orientation, and only some of the time. Robert's orientation is still ??? even if he were a woman as Kadek will still be non-binary.

 

Then why not refer to orientations as being "romantic" instead of as being "sexual"?

Sure, sometimes a heterosexual-heteroromantic person is looking for a relationship that's primarily sexual and sometimes the same person's looking for a relationship that's primarily romantic.

It's just that even when the person is more interested in romance than in sex, there are still asexual-heteroromantic people who are markedly different from that person.

As a matter of fact, we Aces even have specific terminology for this

Ace of Spades: asexual-aromantic (me)
Ace of Hearts: asexual-(hetero/homo/bi/...)romantic (not me)​

 

I'm an ace of hearts (asexual- androromantic) but I don't usually broadcast it as I get a load of 'that's not real'. I just can't deal with anymore of that.

 

@big soft moose I agree, it's sometimes easier and better to explain how you feel than try and sum it up in a word or two.

 

My MC would be raped almost everywhere they fled, poor thing. As it is, (he) is a cowardice soldier running from his duty, he meets a lonely old man and lives with him. Surely if the gender was flipped something disturbing would happen there. He then meets gypsies and again if he was a woman he would be violated there too! And then off to a military prison where I'm not sure what will happen. These vermin guards are not so kind but I doubt they're savages so I guess my MC would be safe there. Whew.

 

I thought I was broken before hearing the label of asexual for the first time. It seemed so axiomatic to me "sex/romance is as intrinsic to human existence as are eating and breathing" that I couldn't imagine that there wasn't anything wrong with me for not having that impulse.

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/01/labels-empowering-harmful/

 

I glaze over it half the time because I suck at math, but can I just say I really appreciate the effort you put into math/formulas when it comes to writing? It's genuinely impressive and I'm just out here wingin' it.

 

Thanks. I don't know if you've read 1984, but I've always been horrified by the prospect of people not recognizing a truth because they don't have the words to describe it to themselves or to others. How can you talk about Freedom as being a good thing when the only word you have for "less than absolute government power" is "Lawlessness"?

I'm a Ravenclaw-Slytherin, I live for showing off my superior cleverness

Would you like me to rewrite the math for extra clarity?

 

I'm just not sure my Hufflepuff brain could take it ... It seems like we approach things from much the same angle, you're just much more efficient about it, hahah.

 

King Arthur would be a boy again, but that's been done.

 

Part of the story involves trying to become pregnant in the face of some obstacles.
Not sure how that would go if the MC was male, seems a definitively female thing.

 

Well, being male definitely qualifies as an "obstacle".

 

The biggest change would be it will be really difficult to assert that my two newly male protagonists are not in any sort of homo-erotic love affair.

The female characters are both insanely intimate & rely on one another for support (and/or enabling), and endure & fight through extroardinary feats just get back to each other's side. Which makes it all the more poignant when they have to admit their relationship in fact is unhealthy and the story is ultimately one of letting go.

The intensity of their feelings and their codependence on one another seems above & beyond what can be expected between platonic, heterosexual male friends. It's not as if I can't actually write it that way—it's just going to be harder to swallow.

Kaz (protag2) could basically stay the same with the same motives and personality, but Othelia (protag1) would seem slightly effeminate.

Also, if the three antognist "love interests" of the story are to remain male, I think it would ultimately change the whole message of the story. If the protagonists are male and gay, there would no longer be any reason the two friends shouldn't ultimately end up together. No longer an unhealthy friendship used to maintain distance from others & the self-fulfilling prophecy of no one else being able to meet their needs—they actually wouldn't need anyone else because they themselves actually are meeting the other person's deepest need.

So instead, their interactions with the three antagonist love interests—the sexual tension in the contests & contentions, and the seductions & repulsions in the manipulative game—would actually lead to the new, ultimate revelation that the protagonists were simply closet gay all along—the reason opposite sex relations never worked out was not because the "women" in their lives were bad eggs, but simply the relations couldn't hold water because they weren't honest with themselves and their attraction to/love of the same sex. And so the two need to come to terms with this, accept it, and finally become the intimate romantic partner of the other they both ought to have been all along.

However, if we are to invert the sex of the antagonist love interests too, the antagonists' characters come off very different.

Ferrel for instance is no longer just a little unhinged and—despite his manipulations—actually is looking out for the best interests of (Kaz) protag2, but is a selfish, conniving woman of the "crazy ex-girlfriend" or "psychotic stalker" variety. Her final words no longer feel like words of strength, encouragement, & kindness—but of cruel cunning, perfectly painful so protag2 would have to continue only thinking of her even after her death.

Mars would just come across more blatantly sultry, but I don't think the confidence & power are ill fitting to a woman. Instead it feels more sensual than domineering. I feel like you'd root for her to seduce and ultimately end up with (Othelia) protag1 more immediately, and her machinations and attempts would be less questioned or suspected of darker, more dubious motives.

As for Lesley, the personality shift from the kind though quiet & diffident farmhand to a dominant, take-no-nonsense marauder seems less reasonable. While it was also a fruitless effort as a man, it came across a more generally accepted gross-misunderstanding that "Alpha Male" personalities are in someway more desirable and thus to be emulated. As a female, she would just come off as becoming an unlikable bitch with no logical line of reasoning for her becoming that way. It also feels more odd & unreasonable that, as a she, Lesley would be so ridiculous over her feelings for protag1 & protag2. It's difficult for me to reconcile that while actually liking protag2, Lesley actively pursues protag1 simply because protag2 encouraged it. Lesley's assumption that protag2 doesn't want her affections and thus is shifting her towards his friend, protag1, still remains. But why a diffident, demure girl would then actually choose to comply with the shift without any real encouragement from the object, protag1,—outside flustered embarrassment—seems stranger than a male doing so (at least to my limited observations & experiences with both sexes).

And lastly, it's actually sort of fun to think of the male protagonists being passive objects of the active flirtations, seductions, and manipulations of the female antagonists.