Please stop with forced female heroines

I didn't say I dislike all female characters. My two favorite books have female protagonists. But nowadays especially I'm more interested in maleness, I guess, and the stories I like often feature male protagonists (like military thrillers). Many people read books about women because they're interested in the female experience. I won't shame them.

 

The issue, for me, is holding men and women (even in fiction) to different standards. A bolshy woman? Oh, she's a bitch. A bolshy man? Fascinating! A woman who can fight? Ugh, be realistic. A man who can fight? Sexy!

It's a real issue because the way we judge women in fiction is the way we judge them in real life. There are studies showing that women talk much less in meetings than men, but are perceived to have talked too much anyway. There are a thousand other studies showing similar results that have a tangible, detrimental effect to women in their everyday lives. These prejudices need to be examined, not casually accepted.

 

I didn't say men who fight unrealistically are sexy. I generally dislike unrealism in fight scenes.

I absolutely agree when it comes to holding people to different standards based on their genitals (as in it can be a problem). I won't give a break to an asshole guy irl just cos he's a guy. I also don't think gravitating toward stories about men automatically does a disservice to women in real life. But I also won't deny that I have interest in the male experience and that interest trumps the reaction to put the book down I might otherwise have. Not always, but sometimes. I think it's also a periodical thing, like now I'm more interested in manhood, which makes me pass over books about women if the female protagonist has traits I dislike (in people). If that makes sense?

I'm not prepared to have the life-imitates-art discussion here, but I do think it's important to examine your attitudes.

 

To be fair, anyone talking in a meeting is talking too much, let that shit end so people can get lunch.

 

"Everyone in meetings is just pushing shit around the table like dung beetles." - Karl Pilkington

Also, I kid you not, but I was once asked to attend a pre-pre-meeting-meeting. As in we had a pre-meeting booked to discuss a future meeting, and I was then asked to meet about the pre-meeting.

I said no.

 

What would be 'forced' about a female heroine? What traits or actions would you consider 'forced'?
I personally liked Rey as a character.. and I like writing female heroines, especially the kind that I would have liked to read about as a kid. At the time I found it difficult to find a book with female heroines that weren't Jane Austen inspired. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but more variety when it comes to female characters is nice.

 

I found her boring and the actress bad. She's also a Mary-Sue.

 

Nazism is on the rise in Germany again, better go write my comic book about Naziman the Third-Reich's local supehero.

 

I am kind of insulted. I mean, chalk it up to bad phrasing, but I am insulted. I mean your phrasing implies that a good hero is a guy. So, a good girl needs to be a guy turned into a girl.

I firmly disagree. I mean, sure a female can be written poorly, so can guys.

 

Since @Tenderiser brought up double-standards, do you think James Bond is also boring? Isn't he a Gary Stu? Like how gendered is this problem, really?

 

The point as later described was the character shouldn't be so designed for the gender.

 

This is why we need objective AI at meetings.

"Sarah, you talked too much."
The AI butted in.
"ACTUALLY, PHIL, SARAH SPOKE FIVE HUNDRED WORDS COMPARED TO YOUR THREE THOUSAND YOU STUPID WANKER"
"Oh, um, right..."
"THREE THOUSAND AND THREE"

 

I'm saying women aren't different from men and so you can write a male character and cut his cock off.
If you take Han Solo and make him into a woman you get a cool female character.
If you take most female characters and turn them into men you get some weird stuff since they're stereotypical/badly written.

A good example of badass women who aren't exaggerated are Catelyn Stark (who fucking killed an assassin with her bare hands) and Dany (even though she relies on men to do her work, her other traits trump that setback). Both are also smart tactically, understand politics and are very well written.
Brienne is a less nuanced character but a good example of a strong woman. In the show she's still pretty attractive, in the books she's a 7 foot butch woman with half her face ripped off.

 

I agree about having more variety. I'd like to see more mixing up of gender stereotypes in general, to the point were you can't determine the gender until a pronoun is used. Like a car-obsessed champion arm wrestler who also happens to be a stay at home parent, or a construction worker who enjoys practising ballet and helping out at the local animal shelter. Not female, but Terry off Brooklyn 99 is an example of the characters I'd like to see.

Except that when dung beetles are pushing shit around, they're being productive

 

James Bond is mindless entertainment.

 

Eh. Yes and no.

I mean, yeah, don't make a character a walking cliche. Don't add characterists soley because of gender, but it work both ways. You can't ignore the gender aspect too. Take the same child, watch them grow up as a boy and girl. You are bound to see differences as a result.

The trick for me is this. Explain it!

Like, perfect example. A girl known as Stacy Tarvoss in my work.

She is an assassin ans a bad ass wwarrior. She is also the stereotypical girl that likes sappy movies and nail polish.

The trick isn't that you can't have both these traits. The trick is how you explain them.

Which in my case is the family bussiness is assissins and her family would practically disown her if she didn't. She was raised there too. So, the assassin and fighter ways were instilleed into her at a young age in-different to her own desires which were opposing later on when she grew up. But she loves family and has a hard time dealing with this conflict.

Does that sound so bad? lol

 

Anakin and Luke were more like Mary-Sues/Gary-Stus than Rey. Not to say Rey is a better character, just that the Star Wars movies in general have always had that problem with its protagonists. It doesn't have anything to do with gender.

 

Flawed debate technique I forget the name of.
"X is worse therefore Y is acceptable".

 

Stop writing forced male characters that put so much emphasis on their manlihood that they can't function without it! I see THAT way more often than with any female characters..

 

While both are Mary/Gary Stu's, I'd argue that James Bond is a bad example on account of he varies so much between writers. E.G Skyfall, where he's declared unsuitable for active service. Not to mention he's had years of training, and has quite a few personality faults such as alcoholism. While this may feed into the power fantasy for some, it can still be seen as a weakness.

To juxtapose, Rey has had no training in piloting, fighting with lightsabers, or using the force. Yet she manages to outfly professional pilots who are in smaller ships, and beat a (admittedly wounded) sith in both a lightsaber duel, and using the force. She even manages to know more about the Millenium Falcon than Han Solo. Even with Mary/ Gary Sues, there is still a level of quality in justification. Bond's writers are more capable of justifying his trait.

 

Not quite in the case of Luke. The thing that almost everyone forgets it that he either runs away from, or losses, every fight apart from one. The only thing he has is being good as a pilot. Even Anakin is more justifiable in his skills on the grounds he has training, though that still leaves the piloting a little less justifiable. Overall, all the characters do suffer it to some extent, however, they put less effort with hiding it with Rey.

 

In-lore Siths should be able to waive pain away using the force.
But I guess they've nixed the EU... Unless he's not a Sith yet? It was unclear.

 

I think this is a more reasonable explanation/justification than Bond being mindless entertainment cos some would say so is Star Wars.

Maybe the writers ended up overcompensating, or maybe Rey is supposed to be one of those freaks of nature who learn stuff fast. I have heard the Mary Sue accusation before, though.

I'm still not sure how gendered a problem we are really talking about. How common are these forced female characters anyway? Probably not disproportionately so in comparison to male characters.

 

Star Wars is not midless-entertainment.

Some people say they are scotch eggs. Doesn't make them scotch eggs.

 

I never justified it, I just pointed out that it was a double standard to judge one character by something while not criticising the other. You are arguing that heroines in current media are boring; I was just saying that the traits you are criticising female protagonists for having also exist in male protagonists even within the same universe. So why are they exempt from criticism? Why are heroines subject to more criticism?