Are female protagonists over done or just difficult to write?

Did you misunderstand me to say that ALL behavior is directly traceable to one's sex?

 

I understood you to be saying that much behavior is traceable to one's sex. In an argument about that specific topic, I would expect your specific examples to support your argument. They don't.

 

@Justin Rocket, I think you underestimate how many victims of abuse, male or female hide the fact they're abused. What makes you think women don't also hide the fact they have been domestically abused?

 

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, under-reporting of domestic abuse by women is around 50%. Or so it was in the late 90s when I worked on such matters. I don't know if it has fallen at all since then, but I doubt it has fallen substantially.

 

What's "much"?

If I say that the fact that we are such an intensive tool using species is traceable to us having opposable thumbs, I'm saying nothing about what kind of tools we have. The fact that we have legs doesn't mean we run all the time. The fact that women have a larger hypothalumus says nothing about how she chooses to use that memory. Her better memory will show up somehow, I just can't say how. That's what I'm saying when I say that there's lots of room for creativity in creating a character which, nevertheless, is a believable character bound by biological and cultural factors.

 

I personally find the femme fatale role to be overdone. Don't get me wrong it is entertaining to watch a sexy chick defy the laws of physics and win fights against men twice her size, but I would like to see female characters who are frail and use their intelligence and cunning to triumph.

 

I like a variety. I don't mind any given archetype (if that's applicable) so long as it's not the only one. That's the advantage of writing people and not getting bogged down into "types" based on what you think sex dictates.

 

Just to quibble: that's closer to the meaning of the phrase "femme fatale." It doesn't usually refer to a woman who fights.

 

While I like to see ANY protagonist win by brains over brawn - I will quibble a little bit here. There's more to the physics of hand to hand combat than brute force and weight. Actually, a lot of it is about using the attacker's own momentum against them to get them on the ground and then proceed to beat them silly. My little sister is considerably smaller than me...she's also a black belt in Taekwondo and will have absolutely no trouble kicking my behind, or that of anyone else with a lower level of training, regardless of size. Now, size does come into play when you have two people with equal skills, but in fictional terms of, say, a highly trained female spy beating a gang of street thugs to withing an inch of their lives...that actually works.

 

I find that very hard to believe, considering even a highly trained, strong male would have very small chances against an entire gang.

 

True but it's something we buy in action settings with male protagonists. Hence I'm no less likely to suspend my disbelief if it's a female in the same scenario.

 

It's suspension of disbelief. We can accept that our protagonists can take a brutal beating and fight off hordes of angry minions if it makes for a more entertaining story.

 

I won't.

I actually often wish women in fiction looked (or were described to look) more like they've actually spent hours upon hours learning to fight. It seems to me men more often look the part. I know it's more difficult for women to gain muscle mass, and sometimes it's possible to look like a waif and still kick ass (there are a couple of YouTube videos proving that. Granted, there are more of those where the waif gets knocked down), but in my experience, your body starts to change when you train hard and diligently. You no longer look all that soft and petite à la Buffy. Your shoulders widen, arms and neck thicken, thighs get bulkier... But I guess that's inconvenient. Especially fightey female protagonists with fighters' bodies are so not overdone, afaic.

 

The person I would expect most to win in a fight would be a masculine man, then a masculine woman, then a feminine man, then a masculine boy, then a feminine women, then a feminine boy, then a masculine girl, and last a feminine girl.

men have no issue with masculine heros, but a female audience is primarily going to want a feminine female hero, which of course is the most ridiculous.

Really, it's just a apectrum of absurdity, because who in real life is actually taking down ten guys by themselves? If this were a Disney film, it would be a penguin beating up everybody.

 

I'm not sure what makes you say that? As a purely anecdotal data point, my favorite character in Orphan Black is Helena, and she's by far the least feminine of the clones.

Edited to add: That's assuming that "feminine" in this context means stereotypically feminine. A highly trained woman who can fight is not unfeminine in my view, but she's not stereotypically feminine.

 

This depends on the circumstances, I think. How many assailants? How well trained are they? Are they armed, and if so, with what weapons? How well trained is the intended victim? Does he/she have weapons, and if so, what? If you're in a situation where the intended victim could reasonably have body armor, do they, and if so, what sort?

 

Masculinity and Femininity are subjective terms that really don't have bearing on people's level of training (having been in martial arts contexts, trust me, you'd be surprised at which people in the group are most capable of kicking your rear end). Some women who present as very feminine are quite skilled in combat. A female acquaintance mine who has a military background is now flooding Facebook with photos of her makeup sales house-party business.

Those sorts of duality especially actually make me more interested in a character.

As for absurdity - action movie physics are absurd - that's why we watch. And I'd love to see that penguin scene.

And if anyone blasts me for being PC, I'm probably one of the most conservative, anti-PC people on this board.

 

They are not subjective terms. Masculinity means more muscle and bone mass, more height, more testosterone, more physical strength, more aggression. If you want to be PC, call it traditional masculinity.

You seem to keep confusing training with body. Training is one thing. Body is another. The truth is, even a high level belt (and by high level belt I mean an applied martial arts, not one of the many BS ones) can still get their ass kicked by someone who is bigger/stronger. That's why their are weight divisions and also gender divisions. And the toughest females I've seen are masculine, or few you, traditionally masculine.

 

In The Winner's Curse the female protagonist is expected to join the military, she's very good at tactics. But she hates to practice sword fighting and is never very good at it. She wins the major sword fight by getting close enough to tell her opponent if she loses her friends are going to spill the beans on his affair with the governor's wife. Blackmail prevails and he concedes the fight.

I like the brains not brawn solution.

 

I like both, whatever works for the story and characters. I was just pointing out that if we are talking about overdone or not overdone female protagonists, a more physically imposing, musclebound woman is really quite rare, even when they have a brawny role in the story. I'm talking Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor level of girl power.

 

I don't think those are the right words for what you're talking about. Strength or physicality might be better.

 

Female characters aren't overdone or any harder to write than any other character. The thing you are describing on TV has more to do with the writers themselves creating static female characters to fulfill either their own desires of what a woman should be, or trying to please the masculine ego of the viewers.

So long as you treat a female protagonist like an actual character instead of squishing her into the static mold everyone else is using you should be fine. Besides, the depth of a female character in a show/movie/book what have you is a good indication of the writer's talent. If it's a flat character, chances are they're either a shitty writer or they lived before the 1800s.

As for if it's overdone....you know vagina-people are 50% of the population right? Just because at this current moment in time several of the best-sellers have female protagonists doesn't mean male protagonists are black-listed. Write which ever gender your story needs or you want to write and stop waiting for other people to approve your writing.

 

I am only really sick of one type of female protagonist.
Let me summarize it for you...

• Is totally romantic and all that neat stuff
• Is a completely bland self-insert character
• Is in a complicated situation with [insert male person here]
• Gets him at the end anyway, so whatever

So I guess what I have an issue with is how some writers handle female leads, making them a bit bland at times, just having them be more of a function and convenient self-insert characters for the reader, rather than having them actually be fleshed out individuals with their own personalities.
And always stuffing them into the, well, let's say good old "will-she-get-him-or-not-oh-screw-it-she's-gonna-get-him-anyway".

But other than that - hell, I myself tend to use female leads most of the time.
I know, I'm a guy... but I could always relate to women better, I always understood them better and I always preferred having female friends, simply because there's more of a natural sense of... well, of understanding between us.

The standard golden rule of writing applies here like it does anywhere else:
Treat your characters as if they were actual, real people, and truly get to know them.

You got all that, got a neat lil' "Check!" on all that?
Neat! Then what stops you? We certainly don't.
It's your art. Feel free to do what you like.

It's simply not a question of "Are female leads okay?", but a question of "How is the female lead done?".
Other than that, there should never be a reason to restrict yourself to a certain gender for your lead.


Greets,
AniGa