I feel like it might depend what else was going on with that character. If she was clearly sensitive to other social conditioning, I think I'd want to know how she managed to resist the gender-related pressures. But if she was a total free spirit in every other way, I'm not sure I'd need a special explanation for her being a free spirit about about gender roles...
Thanks. With that in mind I think I will now turn my attention to other aspects of my story. I totally understand, in the end (IMO) it comes down to your classic "nature vs. nurture", and perhaps now more than ever this is used in debates about gender and sex. And I agree, once you get down to the bare bones, is a reason ever really needed for a character's gender, outside of plots which directly effect it?
On a weird note, I do explain away all my "boyish" quirks and things. Why am I more physical, more handy with tools & grunt work, less likely to back down from an altercation? My brother was closer in age & in better health than my sister. Our family bonded doing physical, hardy activities & sports like camping & dirt biking riding & airsoft gunning, etc. My parents both taught & expected me to perform more physical tasks & pull my weight on the ranch and never once shamed or reprimanded me when I was called in for physical fights from when I was 5 years old to 17—they actively defended me to various principals and even actually put me into martial arts so as to better handle multiple attackers at once. I explain my mom's encouragement of my boyishness from her own personality, from her own upbringing, from being a military brat, from her experiences with her father, etc. I'm always trying to explain away why I am who I am when who I am does not conform to societal "norms." I don't see a problem with me (I have vices obviously but that's everybody) and I wouldn't actually want to change any of the "unconventional" aspects of myself. But I do feel the need to offer an explanation for these nonetheless.
That's the hard thing: readers can be entirely unreasonable in their expectations and sometimes demand explanations where, really, no explanation is necessary. Getting a character across is principally a matter of getting them to just open up and say, "Ok, that's who this person is. I get it."
I used to do this (personality wise, from what you've described we're similar), now though I don't. It's more like "This is who I am. Deal with it. You can't? Oh, well allow me to direct you to the nearest exit."
Don't explain it. Just let the character be her. Tell the story. You are absolutely correct, some of that info will come out through dialogue with other characters, and some of it will come out in internal monologue. Earlier in the thread you asked because So just do that. Have her think about the challenges of being an engineer on a short-haul freighter. Have her think about beer, and hot guys, and plasma containment bottles, and soccer, and the trouble in the Jovian system, and her mom and dad, and power-to-weight ratios. Trust the reader to come to the realization that this is just who she is. Make her as real on the paper as she is in your mind, and people will get that. And if you want her to be boyish without being "butch" or a "tomboy," (and lets all remember that these terms are all defined in the context of society) give her some girly-girly traits, and sprinkle in just a few snails and puppy dog tails. Maybe she is like Kaylee and loves a pretty dress. And engines. And dancing with gorgeous doctor boys. And strawberries. But she shows affection to the crew by punches in the shoulder, and loves talking sports. But she loves makeup, and even though her hair is short because engineering, she also spends ten minutes every morning making sure it is Just So. I fall back on my initial point. Make her real. You know what you are trying to say. You can see her in your headspace. All you have to do is get that person down on paper. Or am I just missing the point of all of this?
Maybe a younger woman who's still insecure and experiences societal pressures (or self-imposed pressures) more strongly would try to explain to themselves, or others, why they are a little different from their female friends? So it could be something the writer could discuss. I don't see a problem there. If anything, it glimpses at the kind of expectations women have of themselves (or the world of women) and calls gender norms into question. I know I used to do it more, but now at 28 I'm much more comfortable and confident in doing stuff I like unapologetically and not finding it that important to defend myself if someone looks askance at me. But sometimes I do feel out of place, especially in female company. The only venue where I'm with relatively like-minded women is at the horse stables, but even there it's really just the horses we have in common.
Yes, when I was younger I definitely did. I also find that, generally speaking, I get along with men far easier than women. I generally don't care about things that most women I know care about.
I quote from my own blog: In junior high and high school I saw fashion as a competition to find out who could most slavishly and expensively copy the style of the instant. It was what the mean girls did in those lazy sunlit moments stretching on the savannah as they picked their teeth and bonded after eating the unpopular. The same sentiment applied to most of the trappings and customs of femininity. My still-limited interest in that stuff started sometime in my forties, not coincidentally after my mother died.
Love that! And completely agree. I'll wear a dress now and then, and I'll even do makeup occasionally, but for them most part I just can't be bothered.
Well said! That definitely helped me out, I will just write her down as I see her, and trust the reader to come to their own conclusions from her monologues and interactions with other characters. Pretty much just write her as a character and let the rest happen naturally. BTW, who's Kaylee?
I didn't read the whole thread. People are people. I think paying much attention to things like Bechel tests can stump writers. How many females do you know? How many are just like males that you know? For me, the best way that females are handled in fiction is when they think more than males. Simple as that.
