My Male Chauvinistic writing style

[Srebak]

I'll just cut right to the point, i'm starting to think that i don't know how to write strong female characters (lead or supporting). In fact, I'm starting to think that my writing style is pretty biased towards women (either there aren't many female characters or they're just there to be the love interest or rescue victim) and really don't want that to be the case. In this day and age, it's pretty obvious that women are capable of doing anything a man can do (maybe even more so), yet whenever i try to imagine a story, i end up thinking of lines and scenes that could definitely be considered anti-feminist or sexist; them being objects of beauty, them needing a "big, strong man" to come rescue them or them just being the generic love interest and nothing more. I repeat, i don't want that to be the case, especially when i'm thinking about new ways to handle a show or movie that has a strong admirable female lead.

The worst part of it is, i think this stems from my favorite animation company, Disney. A lot of their earlier movies had pretty weak female leads. You would think that since i was born during the time when that was starting to change, this wouldn't be a problem, but it kind of is.

I want to believe that since i can acknowledge something as sexist and anti-feminist, that means i'm not a sexist myself, but i just don't know.

Any thoughts?

 

[Beth Pavell]

I tend to have a problem with what's commonly thought of as the "strong woman" in fiction. I don't see it as synonymous with "action girl" - a gender-flipped action man with an assault rifle, to be stereotypical about it. In my opinion, great female characters are those that would still exist, even if the story didn't. What I mean by that is that they have their own personality, hopes, fears, etc independent from their role in the story. This thinking applies mostly to main characters. A clerk is a clerk, man or woman, and it doesn't matter what their life is like if they're only there to hand the hero(ine) a folder.

As an exercise, try thinking up a male lead, doesn't matter for what kind of story. Write a bio, if you need to. Then gender-flip him. You may well find that the bio barely needs changing

 

[kintsugi]

My problem with the term "strong female character" is the implication that all other female characters are, for whatever reason, not supposed to be strong.

Pavell has solid advice. Characters are characters, and thinking about a person's personality/hopes/dreams/fears/backstories/habits/quirks before you think of a gender is an excellent way to go about.

 

[AetherX]

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it. Just write the story. As someone with a "strong" female character at the forefront of my story, I can say that I really don't care. The only reason I made her a girl was because that was the image I had in my head. Pavell's suggested exercise is a great idea, and if you're that worried about it you could just gender-flip one of your main characters and see what happens.

...just being the generic love interest and nothing more.

Now this, on the other had, is a big no-no. Characters that exist for no other reason than to give your hero a reward of some well deserved sex at the end of the story are boring. Love interests should be as deep as the main character, with a background and feelings far beyond just romance. That makes everything so much more real and enjoyable. When you start getting your female characters more involved in the story, I'm sure everything else will come in time.

 

[Dorothy LaRouge]

It's good that you recognize possible sexist elements in the way you write women. It's certainly a problem with many, many writers, and acknowledging it is a good first step to overcoming it. Always keep in mind that your characters, women included, are people, and as such they shouldn't be props for other characters, nor should any one group of them be all the same. If you struggle to write female characters, i'd say it might be best to spend time reflecting on those characters, their backstory, personality, and other traits. try to get inside their head. Doing so gives a better and deeper understanding of that character, and invariably makes writing them as an individual much easier.

 

[Hector]

I was coming here to give the exact advice that Pavell already gave. As others have said, this is something many writers (myself included) struggle with / have struggled with in the past

The simple gender flip really gives you an idea of what you can do with a female character. Consider your male protagonists / antagonists. They are likely deep characters, with storied pasts, well thought out traits... you see how they would act / react very clearly in your head.

And when you flip the gender, most if not all of those things can stay. Once you're comfortable with doing that, you will find you have become much better at writing female character.

 

[Johan]

The thing with "strong female" characters is basically the same as with "strong male" characters.

It may sound a bit odd at first but hear me out: When you write a character, write the characters basis genderless and completely a-sexual first. What does your character like/not like, what are it's quirks, strengths and weaknesses. Build upon a genderless basis to get a basic construct of what you want that character to be.

After that comes gender, sexuality, etc. But now you already have something you can work with, right? You already know what you want that character to be. Let's stay with your example here: A strong character, now decided to be female.

Now, consider the world you have placed this character in. Is it our current time or a fictional world? If it's our current time, think about sociatel gender-roles and how they could affect a character, Either them rejecting them, unwillingly accept them, fully accept them or just not having any opinion about them. If it's a fictional world, these sociatel pressures may be completely absent or maybe they're replaced with others. For example, maybe women are expected to be capable fighters in your world - or maybe they are expected to wear only shades of yellow? At that point it's up to you and how you want this world to be constructed.

You can apply this concept to everything, including sexuality. For example a gay male character set in our current time could resent his own sexuality, despite him knowing that's who he truely is, simply because of sociatel pressures exerting on him. And depending on what kind of a character you've written him to be he might get violent or maybe he'll end up depressed - anything is possible when you've set up a construct for your character beyond such simple concepts as gender and sexuality. Believe me when I say that they can easily be afterthoughts. Afterthoughts with a (dependingly) big impact, but afterthoughts nonetheless.

I don't really know if I've gotten my point across in a helpful manner, but I can leave you with this:

Never write your stories to appease anyone but yourself. You sound kinda like you only want to do this on the off-chance of being offensive to the overly-sensitive. Please don't let that be your main-motivation in this. Just write characters and stories because you like them the way you've created them. There is nothing inherently wrong with a weak female character and there is also nothing inherently wrong with a female character being captured or rescued, just as there is nothing wrong with depicting some men as bumbling idiots who only think about female genitalia as long as that's what you WANTED that character to be in that scenario, that story, that world or that universe.

Also, maybe this'll help you a bit: Try anonymously role-playing a female character in an MMO or an online-P&P if you have acces to any of that. It helped me quite a bit in developing some of my female characters.




I hope you'll get to a style of writing you can sincerely enjoy and share with others.

 

[Srebak]

When it comes down to it, when i think of a female character, i guess i just want to know what to do so as not to make said characters sexist and/or anti-feminist caricatures. At my age, i should know that women are not just here to be mates for men, nor should they be treated as objects or inferior beings without any voice. By all accounts, the world i grew up in should make it clear that female characters should have as much to do as males.

Hypothetically speaking, say i wanted to make a female character a love interest who is always there for the male lead and i did want the male hero to rescue her from something, how do i do all of this without it coming off as me viewing women as inferior to men (which by all accounts, i shouldn't)?

As i said before, i'm worried that Disney (one of my favorite animation companies) may have played a role in this.

 

[Johan]

When it comes down to it, when i think of a female character, i guess i just want to know what to do so as not to make said characters sexist and/or anti-feminist caricatures. At my age, i should know that women are not just here to be mates for men, nor should they be treated as objects or inferior beings without any voice. By all accounts, the world i grew up in should make it clear that female characters should have as much to do as males.

Hypothetically speaking, say i wanted to make a female character a love interest who is always there for the male lead and i did want the male hero to rescue her from something, how do i do all of this without it coming off as me viewing women as inferior to men (which by all accounts, i shouldn't)?

As i said before, i'm worried that Disney (one of my favorite animation companies) may have played a role in this.

I don't get what you want us to say at this point, you've pretty much been given all the advice you'd need to create a female character that's not sexist. Also: Sexist and Anti-feminist are not interchangeable and have nothing to do with one another. For example: There are sexist Feminist and non-sexist MRA. Just to use the two typical sides of the larger discussion.

 

[Srebak]

I guess when it comes down to it, i was hoping to hear someone tell me that i wasn't sexist or anti-feminist, even though i feel that my imagination is leaning towards that. I really don't want to send the wrong message to a female audience, just because the idea felt okay with me or if a good idea didn't feel right to me.

I was also somewhat hoping that someone would say that it's okay if the female lead in my story is a love interest or a Damsel in Distress, even though that's just asking for feminist criticism.

I repeat, i don't want people (especially myself) to think that i think that men are superior to women, that's sexist. I heard all of the suggestions you suggested, just like i heard the ones in the last two forums i posted this topic in. But for some reason, not only are the suggestions I'm hearing not satisfying, but i don't think i'm able to do any of them (I have a slight aversion to change, there i admit it).

 

[AetherX]

Okay, I'll say what I said before even more explicitly.

There is nothing wrong with having a damsel in distress and/or love interest. You can make this come across as not "sexist/anti-feminist" by writing them as a deep, interesting, and believable character. All of your characters should have more to them than just whatever role they play in the story. ALL OF THEM.

Stop worrying about it and write whatever story you want to write. Unless you do a terrible job, no one will care. If you write boring, two-dimensional female leads with no real contribution to the story other than to fuck things up coughRoseTylercough then those will just be poor characters. If you have a problem writing them any other way then that's a very different issue, it has nothing to do with Disney brainwashing you.

For what it's worth, I've never seen any of the Disney princess movies. I grew up solely on Star Wars and Pokemon.

 

[Srebak]

Well, the male chauvinistic thought process has not gone away and i'm still stuck with thoughts of men talking down to women. What's worse, i'm also imagining Women agreeing with sexist comments and beliefs, particularly ones that have established themselves as strong female characters.

 

[AetherX]

Let me reiterate.

Are they deep, believable, characters?

 

[Srebak]

Let me reiterate.

Are they deep, believable, characters?

They're more of fanfiction characters really, meaning that they're characters that already exist within the shows i'm writing stories for.

One of them is a villainess turned heroine who was once trained to take on creatures twice her size. She was the love interest to the hero, but she seemed like the more logical minded in the couple. Now, it feels like i'm starting to make her into a simple love interest who supports and defends everything the hero does no matter what and feels perfectly fine with the stereotypical roles for women. A bit of a downgrade from a smart and logical female character, wouldn't you agree?

The other is a minor character from a show that i liked and wanted to thrust into the spotlight. I tried to give her new abilities nd more to do, but i keep visualizing her as a doting love interest who, once again, does nothing but praise and obey the male protagonist. By all accounts, i should make her more independent and more intelligent.


I may not always imagine fan stories for other shows, but my mind does have a habit of taking serious, intelligent and independent female characters and turning them into naive, codependent love interests. I find that embarrassing to think about and want it to stop right away.

 

[Beth Pavell]

If you want to write, read. Put your own story on hiatus and set to reading as many female characters as you can

 

[CrystaI]

Even if you feel too tiresome to read, then watch. Watch the movies, the cartoons, the animes, the TV series, etc. Or even read the mangas, or play the story-based games if you don't like to watch. Because your problem is seems to be more about character establishment and character in-story purpose, rather than literature and language problem that is specific for writing novels.

The basic rules and guidelines to develop believable characters for fictional work is exactly the same, regardless of what kind of medium the fictional work was presented. Whether it is for novel, movie, TV series, anime, manga, or even game, the rules of producing well-established and believable character is still the same.
Hence when you are reading a fictional novel, or watching a fictional show, or playing a fictional game, take a look of how the characters in the works are presented. Note about the purpose they serve in the story, how they interact with other characters, how their existence progress the story, etc.



BTW, if you feel like wanting a reference of such "strong and logical-minded female character", I would suggest you to take a watch of the Tomb Raider movies, or play the Final Fantasy XIII game.

 

[Glitchipedia]

I kind of have a similar problem, only reversed—my male characters tend to come out one- or two-dimensional, while my female characters are usually strong and fully developed. Furthermore, the vast majority of my women are cast as heroes, while the vast majority of my men are cast as villains. Exceptions exist on both sides, but they are few and far between. I think it's because my male characters are often culled from selections of my own personality traits, whereas my female characters are written as the kind of people I'd like to have in my life.

Take, for example, two of my protagonist characters:

• Willis ra Teremolve (The Elder Scrolls): Formerly apprenticed to an Orc battlemage, his sole ambition is now to kill said battlemage to save Nirn from total destruction and simultaneously avenge his dead sister. He literally seems to have no other interests. While he is noted to be married with two children, the story behind this remains unwritten.
• Annie Jameson (Pokémon): While her most highlighted trait is her love and aptitude for all things technological and, consequently, her ambition to have a career in computer engineering, many other facets of her personality are defined as well: she is a skilled percussionist, enjoys rock and techno music, finds dresses and skirts highly impractical, doesn't drink very often (but prefers Dos Equis when she does, dohohoho), loves making friends of both sexes and is terrified of clowns (which is a problem, since one of her closest friends has a Mime Jr. as her main Pokémon), but not horror movies (which mostly make her feel sick instead of fearful), among many other little details. Unlike Willis, she doesn't exist for the sole purpose of moving the plot, but she will participate if there happens to be a plot nearby.

These are the examples that I feel best demonstrate my problem. And for the record, I did try gender-flipping Annie and three of her friends once, but....I couldn't take my mind off of how they would react to being gender-flipped. It wasn't pretty.

 

[PiccoloX]

The only way to write a strong woman is to not bother mentioning the gender in the first place. Don't even bother thinking of the gender and just write an awesome story. Hell, let the reader think their reading about a dude and drop the bomb in the end so that they can see how sexist they are for thinking it was a dude.

Someone probably already gave this answer, but this isn't a post that needed more than 1 page to answer in the first place.


Average Male:
"Gee, how do I write about a girl that isn't too girly?"

PiccoloX83:
*flips table to reveal he's wearing a skirt*
"That's how! 'Tee-Hee' mother f@^%#r!"
*poorly positioned Captain Morgan pose*


The End... <3


Kidding aside, this example I gave is still 100% viable simply by replacing "he" with "she". You can throw in romance later for the media pigs to squaller in.

 

[Littleleaf]

"Strong female lead" is a difficult term to define. In most cases, women are physically weaker and more vulnerable than men. Therefore, successful strong women tend to be those who can fight smarter, not harder. Often their battle is emotional, not physical, and they have profound inner strength. Diplomacy is often a strong point, too. I find female characters who make the most of their gender differences the most appealing. Sometimes, things just need a woman's touch.

 

[Niji]

@WindBlast; I'd thought this might interest ya.

Heh, funny that I came across this topic just after theme-ing a "strong female character," so to speak hence the "Don't Screw Up, Writers!" in my sig.

I'll just cut right to the point, i'm starting to think that i don't know how to write strong female characters (lead or supporting).

Ah, here we have an example of the task of writing for the opposite gender. I forget the source, but one English teacher (maybe??) once talked about how most of their male students, although angrily denying they were sexist, seemed to have great difficulty writing female characters, but all of their female students wrote male characters with ease. I'm not trying to sound condescending. It's good that you're making a conscious effort to improve your writing of female characters, which is very important. There are also a number of male writers who do write female characters very well. It's just a problem more than one would think.

There are an infinite number of ways to be a man, and an infinite number of ways to be a woman. There are women who long to fall in love with a man, women who long to fall in love with a woman, women who like the idea of love, women who hate the idea of love, and women who couldn't care less about it. There are women who think they're the most ravishing sight to behold, women who fight tooth and nail to be thought of as beautiful, women who don't fuss much over it, and women who only bathe in the blood of their enemies. Some want love or beauty, some want money or power, some want happiness for themselves or for others, some want answers, some would die to protect secrets, some want to feel like they're good enough, and some want to use and abuse every foolish human.

I'd recommend watching stuff with well-written female characters and taking notes on all the variety in their personalities, their strengths and weaknesses, their "masculinity" and "femininity," ect. Also just observing real-life women; maybe even asking some questions. Try to represent women as diverse as the ones you know in your life. Have ones who are aggressive, nervous, honor-bound, lazy, intelligent, impractical, or heck, even all of the above! People all have a lot of traits and a lot of life experience, making us all crazy-complicated! We have traits that contradict one another. I'm a protective, generous, non-sports-playing, sensitive, shy vegan who writes horror, is fascinated by pictures out of hospital records, listens to heavy metal, dislikes romance, loves first-person shooters, and wants to be a body builder! Don't be afraid to copy a lot of traits from girls you know. Art imitates life, as they say. Keep their characteristics in mind until you have a good sense of them as a person. Don't let them let go of their desire for solitude, their anger, their disgust for cute animals, whatever! Give their character justice! They're their own entity, so don't go bending them to your own will.

Also, take a minute to read a few classic character descriptions and episode summaries I've gathered from some Wikis!

Spoiler

1. "Nathan has a relatively simple personality: fierce and stubborn. Nathan fears little, which is demonstrated when he directly and disrespectfully addresses the feared head of school, demanding that his questions be answered, and when he fights the captain of the boxing club, even though he is clearly overpowered...."

2. Her hot-blooded friend yells Yuki's name and Yuki says that it's for the best before she is dragged towards the villainous demon. He laughs and asks if the boy thought he'd lose to the likes of him. A portal appears behind him and he says that he'll settle for Yuki instead for now. The boy curses at him. Just before the demon disappears, he throws the powerful card to one of the boy's companions, saying that it will be a clue to where he will take Yuki. The boy attempts to save Yuki, but the demon disappears before that happens. The boy screams at the sky, with everyone watching him. He vows to take her back as he shouts Yuki's name as a clip focuses on the sun.

3. Initially, James had a very cold and distant nature to his demeanor, a result of spending years being treated as a monster. Jam viewed everyone around him as his enemy and eventually stopped caring about other people's feelings. It wasn't until a psychic showed him compassion, that James began to have hope in his life again. Despite this new feeling of self-worth from the psychic, James's rage at the world continued to grow, which Sayer intentionally drove him towards. After meeting a fellow outcast, James began to question the path he took of distancing himself from normal society.

Now, just try thinking about and picturing Nate, Yuki, and James for a bit. Now imagine they were gender-bent. Sure, a fierce and reckless girl, a both meek and male damsel-in-distress, and a violent and angst-ridden girl are more unusual, but they can still be characters all the same.

And finally:

Spoiler

Nathan is a from the description of the female protagonist of Kill la Kill, and extremely popular anime, and Yuki and James are descriptions of a boy and a girl from the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. It was perfectly natural for you to imagine "Nathan" (Ryoku) and "James" (Akiza) as male characters, while imagining "Yuki" (Rei) as a female one, while in reality, Ryoku and Akiza were designed as female characters, while Rei was designed as a male character. This is evidence that genders are just one factor in a character, a detail that could be changed as easily as their favorite food or band. I'm proud of myself for this one :bc .

If you ever want to talk more about it, you could always shoot me a message with more specific questions, or for any advice !

I kind of have a similar problem, only reversed—my male characters tend to come out one- or two-dimensional, while my female characters are usually strong and fully developed. Furthermore, the vast majority of my women are cast as heroes, while the vast majority of my men are cast as villains. Exceptions exist on both sides, but they are few and far between. I think it's because my male characters are often culled from selections of my own personality traits, whereas my female characters are written as the kind of people I'd like to have in my life.

You're certainly an unusual case. That's really interesting.... Sorry, I did go "Awwe" when reading the last part ^^; .