Lack of "strong" female characters?

Kate Beckett of Castle strikes me as a strong woman. She can kick butt but it's not all she can do.

 

Yes, there is Kate Beckett, and also Lisbon from the Mentalist

 

Prenitce from Criminal Minds.

 

Olivia Benson from Law and Order: SVU.

Dana Scully from X-Files.

I always thought they were strong females.


My female characters, atleast in Fantasy, are the badass type. Kicking butt and one of them doesn't bother to take names. They also wear the usual armor. No heels on the battle field nor going around in skimpy outfits.

 

Think my fantasy females are the more quirky type - sort of Abi from NCIS or a role Whoopi Goldberg would play in the 80s (Jumping Jack Flash, Sister Act etc)

The one that will be taking a lead has pea-green hair she died to match her eyes, is good with a bow and arrow, but is only fourteen so is vulnerable in places. Confident and sassy type. Think she has entry on my blog on here when she first meets Merlin. She doesn't appreciate his celtic scent and tells him he needs a bath.

 

This is silly...don't worry about it. Some of my stories end up with more male characters, and some have more female characters. If your story works with mostly female protagonists, I say go with it. I don't think that adding token male characters just to attain a particular gender balance will help your story.

I'm not sure what genre you read, for the most part. I'm mainly familiar with fantasy and literary fiction, and I've found lots of books with strong female characters who are well-developed and interesting. They're fleshed out with weaknesses and quirks just like the male characters are. As for Hollywood, I find they're mostly pretty lame, but I'm not all that much into films anyway (with a few exceptions).

Even if you haven't found any good female characters in what you've read so far, your own writing is an opportunity to create the kind of female characters you'd like to read about.

 

Oh, I think there is. To add to all those already quoted, Terry Pratchett has a few (and has won awards for feminist fiction because of it). Tiffany Aching, Granny Weatherwax, Susan -- all of them immensely strong characters and all of them taking the lead in some books.

 

In my first novel, the main players are all male. It's likely going to be the same thing in my second novel...and it's really not out of sexism. For me, I honestly don't understand women in all their complexity to feel confident enough to write a realistic, believable, complex female lead. I don't want any unrealistic, two dimensional leads in ANY of my novels, so until I feel more comfortable in my understanding of women, I'm not even going to try.

If that makes me lose points in the feminist circles, well too bad, but I won't write something of lesser quality just for the sake of "gender equality."

 

If you're wondering why there aren't many strong or interesting female leads in mainstream fiction, look no further than the excuses peddled on this very thread! ^

 

Not saying they don't exist, but c'mon, they're a tiny minority on the memorable characters list.

 

not really - Temperence Brennan. Miss Marple, Mennolly, Alice in Wonderland, Heidi, Little Women, Katy from What Katy Did, Little Princess, Mary from Secret Garden, Roberta in Railway Children, Enid Blyton had a stack of them, Pamela Brown wrote amazing ones, in the Hardy Boys they weren't MCs but Callie Shaw and Iola Morton weren't bad, Jane Eyre, Rose McQuinn, Kate Mortons books - Barbara Taylor Bradford did the Woman of Substance, Catherine Cookson had a few good females, I am sure I can think of more. I can move onto TV and film if you like ?

 

I dunno man, maybe the fact that I've seen so few female characters who struck me as strong and memorable says more about me than it does about the current scene.

 

How about Nancy Drew? She was my childhood hero.

There's some great female superheroes, too.

 

Could be cos you don't read girls books

 

Would you rather that I tried to write a strong female lead and fail spectacularly when women read my work and go, "What the...women do not think or act like that!" instead of not trying at all?

 

If you fail spectacularly at writing characters who represent over half of the human population, you need to keep trying.

Firstly, why do you keep writing two dimensional female characters... etc.

 

I don't...but I don't feel confident in understanding how a woman thinks as opposed to how a man thinks to write a woman as a main character. In other words, I cannot replicate the thought process for how a woman would immediately react to a given situation versus how a man would. It's been said over and over again that there are subtle, but complex differences between how men react and think about things versus how women react and think about things. I understand my own thought process as a man and the subconscious motivations that drive me and what I do, and how my gender factors in to them.

But I don't know how the thought process works for women, and thus cannot "get into a woman's head" and describe what she is thinking and feeling about something in a novel. Or at least, I doubt that I can.

Does that make any sense?

 

^^^ Just remember that line from As Good As It Gets, when the writer played by Jack Nicholson is asked how he writes such realistic female characters.

 

I agree with jimboa26. Many have tried to write from the opposite gender's pov and failed. A writer must know their limitations. Janet Evanovich used to write romance books. She says now (that has a mystery series though they are what i would call chick lit) reading those early books shed like to stick to fork in her eye because of how little she understood the male pov. She limits male characters in her ongoing series and they are the most lovable characters.

 

It seems to me like the differences between men and women are being exaggerated if people think they can't possibly write from the point of view of an opposite gender. The sexes do tend to have different strengths, but women are not a separate species; we are all human and we all know what it is like to be human. Women and men are capable of the same emotions, and people vary so vastly in thought process, personality, capability and desire. Do you think it can be said that there are thoughts and feelings that are strictly female or strictly male? Aside, perhaps, from those directly related to being pregnant or getting kicked in the nads, or something like that.

I know it doesn't change the fact that, especially as leads, women are a minority in most forms of media, but I always think of the two female characters in the first Jurassic Park movie, Dr. Sattler and Lex Murphy. They are badasses, they save their male companions more than once, and there is no macho posturing about it, because they are just people being brave in order to survive.

 

I wasnt arguing the importance of strong female characters. I just think its harsh to criticize a writer for stating where their strength lies and concentrating on that. A writer doesnt have to be good at everything (I know, there are always areas to improve). They have to know what theyre good at and use it to their advantage.

 

Yes, but getting pregnant and getting kicked in the nads have different emotional and psychological meanings and connotations to women and men, respectively. I will never know or understand what being pregnant is, compared to how a woman knows or understands it, not just physically, but also psychologically. I would never pretend to either.

Men and women have different subconscious reactions to things, not just pregnancy, based on their gender and instincts. That's all I'm getting at. I think I'm fine writing a female character so long as I don't have to allow the reader to get into her head and give them a peak at her thought process and reactions to things the way I give it to them when they follow Nathan in "I See A Darkness" (my book).

 

"I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability."

 

I think the easiest way to improve on this matter is to recognize that men/women (whichever is your opposite) are just like any other character: they're characters. They have whatever mindset, whatever train of thought you want them to have. It doesn't matter if someone reads your story and says "No man/woman would do that!" because everyone is different.

Maybe, by accident or author's choice, your women have a male's temperament and habits. That's called a tomboy, and I know quite a few of them personally, so they do exist. I can't think of a kind name for an excessively feminine man, but whatever it is, the other end of this spectrum is covered as well.

To summarize this not particularly long post, it doesn't matter if your opposite-genered character isn't a "typical" representative of his/her sex. People of all personalities exist on both sides. In fact, I'd say that consciously attempting to create a "typical" central figure is doing a disservice to your story. No one should strive to be ordinary. Ordinary people don't have stories written about them.

 

If you treat them like characters and not actual real people, that's all they will come across as to the reader. A well-written character comes to life and starts to do stuff on their own. As in, if you have something planned that your character does, and it goes against that character's personality and, well, character, then it sticks out like a sore thumb and comes across as bad writing...which it is.

I suppose that's true, but I can't write/model ALL my female characters as myself. I'm really not a very feminine guy