Strong Female Characters*

[James Coote]

Sorry, I kinda sidetracked things, though I thought it would be interesting to contrast the debate about "Strong" women with that about "Funny" women.

I can think of a few sitcoms where there the female characters are strong in a motherly sense, as a foil to the juvenile male antics.

 

[Toby Frost]

True, although that's a very difficult role for a character to play. On the one hand, you need to flag up the fact that the antics are juvenile, but on the other you don't want the character to appear like an interfering parent. I have a character like this, and there's always the risk that she'll turn into that figure who watches the others, tuts and says "Men!" before striding away (My memory may not be perfect here, but I remember David Eddings having a few of those).

As came up in the "Wotism" thread a long time ago, there is a big difference between powerful characters (ie those who can do a lot in the world of the story - wizards, nobility and equivalents) and strong characters, in the sense of well-written ones. I suspect that with some characters, weakness in story terms can actually become a strength in terms of the quality of writing. A king who suffers from melancholia may be less effective ruler than one who doesn't, but may be much better and more interesting as a character.

The same might be said for women characters. The addition of "girly" traits to "manly" traits (sorry, can't think of better terms right now) may end up with a more interesting and convincing character. I suspect being funny could cut both ways here: many "ditzy" female characters are annoying (often because the writer clearly fancies them) although genuinely witty characters are almost always a good thing to have, and the ability to comment wittily on events does suggest a sort of mental strength.

 

[sabolich]

On the one hand, you need to flag up the fact that the antics are juvenile, but on the other you don't want the character to appear like an interfering parent. I have a character like this, and there's always the risk that she'll turn into that figure who watches the others, tuts and says "Men!" before striding away (My memory may not be perfect here, but I remember David Eddings having a few of those).

Hmm. One of my characters had that exact reaction in my recently published steampunk story in the Gears and Levers anthology. It is very hard to avoid having that reaction, actually, when observing juvenile strutting and chest-beating. I can remember wanting to scream "Take it outside, you morons!" when two guys almost came to blows across a conference table once, both of them in their suits and ties. Egad. It is a natural reaction from both men and women, I think, when watching immature posturing. How should a woman react? On the one hand, wading in to physically separate the combatants is not a good idea unless she is physically bigger or wields some inarguable authority over them. Mom, the teacher, or the head priestess might manage this on sheer force of authority. A lesser woman might have to wield magic or a whip.

On the other hand, just standing there watching, tapping her foot, isn't much use, nor is walking away and leaving them to childishly duke it out while the barbarians advance to the gates. A witty, cutting remark may go completely unheard, and will either of these macho guys actually be shamed into better behavior? Unlikely. Such personalities are more likely to sulk and brood on the fact that a woman called them to heel. The balancing act of authority a woman must undertake is ever so much trickier than that for most guys, who establish authority in ways recognized as valid by the male half of the species, and usually by different means. Her best chance at maintaining control is to use her wits, humor, and diplomacy to keep the situation from getting that far in the first place.

The addition of "girly" traits to "manly" traits (sorry, can't think of better terms right now) may end up with a more interesting and convincing character.

Yes, indeed. Guys with no vulnerable side are as uninteresting as women with no backbone. Glorifying the ditzy female seems to me to be providing an excuse for the man to never have to respect her. Likewise, glorifying the uber-macho guy gives the female an excuse to never have to step up. So, we're back to the basis of all good characterization: well rounded!

 

[Toby Frost]

I think it depends a lot on the circumstances. A queen holding together squabbling factions through cunning and force of will is likely to be a lot more sympathetic than someone who frowns whenever people make a joke. At times it's very necessary for characters to restore order - the worry for me is a character may end up with disapproval as a major personality trait. Since three of my four main characters are rather childish, it's easy for the fourth to seem like a rather dull stern-parent sort, which isn't what you want from a sympathetic character.

It makes me think of the setup in some adverts, where a childlike, incompetent man is shown how to do things by a smart and confident woman. About 5 years ago it was very common, although it seems less popular now. Perhaps the idea has got a bit stale. At any rate, at least from here, it has the effect of making the woman character seem competent but a bit smug.


I suppose it all goes to show that there aren't any short cuts to good characterisation.

EDIT: Apologies for tiny writing!

 

[HareBrain]

It's really hard to find a good female-female friendship in literature.

I thought I'd bump this thread because I want to know why this is the case. I've been reminded of it by two things recently. A couple of weekends ago, I met a friend of a friend who has chosen precisely this subject for her English Lit degree dissertation. And in the thread on the Batman premiere shootings, Parson linked to this article which contains the following:

While tales of male heroes saving loved ones and friends are deservedly celebrated in our culture, stories of female friendship often centre around competition rather than heroism.

Any speculation as to why? (I don't think we got very deeply into it last time.)

 

[Hex]

Some suggestions (off the top of my head):

• The tradition of male friendship in wartime situations (particularly WW1 where women, with the white feathers and the emphasis on protection that was used to send men to war, were in some ways responsible). Also boarding schools (see all the homoeroticism of the Edwardian period with the admiration of young boys' bodies). Women have traditionally been less defined by these contexts.
• Homoeroticism brings us to... homosexuality. There's potentially a conflict or an added dimension in men's close relationships that possibly doesn't seem to figure so much in women's.
• (genre?) Stories about men seem to revolve around finding a big, hard weapon and plunging it into something scaly, where it can be useful to have a male companion who's not as strong -- to set off the heroics of the main character. Stories about women, though, often focus on romance (thinking about most of the classics, and chicklit, and romance) -- where the female companion is used as conflict to emphasise the superior qualities of the main character (Persuasion is a nice example of this). One could argue that (according to a lot of literature) the most important adventure in a woman's life is finding the right man and of course we need to fight off other women to get him.
• Connected to this -- while novels about men often focus on going out and doing something heroic, novels about women may be more about social conventions and their constriction -- in those circumstances, you need to have no female friends because they'd weaken the terrible pressure from society or men. Is isolation more of an issue for women than for men?
• Alpha males can have as many friends as they like as long as all are subordinate?

Edited to add: the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it's about putting the female character in a difficult position -- if she had a good, close female friend she wouldn't be lost and alone.

Also, I don't completely recognise the pattern -- there are close female friendships in, for example, Jane Eyre (yeah, the first one dies when she's fourteen or so, but then St.John's sisters are good friends to Jane as well), Pride and Prejudice (it's sisters, but I think it still counts), the Ilona Andrews urban fantasy series, a fair number of YA novels (Need, The Black Heart, Valiant (so the female friend turns out to be a nutcase -- but so do most of the males), even The Hunger Games (not the most nurturing and supportive of books)has a female friendship aspect -- [SPOILERS] there's the girl who gives Katniss the mockingjay pin (her friend at home) and then the little girl Katniss hooks up with in the arena (admittedly briefly).

 

[The Judge]

And even in Persuasion, Anne has female friends in Lady Russell and Mrs Smith, and she's hardly in real conflict with Henrietta and Louisa.

As Hex says, the tradition of male bonding is a strong one in literature, going back to Homer and probably beyond. There isn't the same long tradition of female heroes in situations where they need to/can protect those in peril/weaker than themselves.

Something the other day reminded me of Labyrinth, though I can't now recall what, with the premise of the teenage girl rescuing the younger sibling, but in both cases the sibling was male. I couldn't make up my mind why this was -- whether (cynically) too many girls would put off boys, or (PC'ly) someone had thought it wrong to have a girl needing rescue.

And it's not literature, but didn't Xena have a female sidekick?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

TJ has posted, so my initial comments now seem a little out of context.

Ref. the overriding thread theme: from my perspective, I like realism in characterisation, probably to my detriment, and I sometimes wonder if, actually, the female portrayal is more true to life. By which I mean, when presented with danger, how many of us would pick up a sword - in whatever fashion - and face whatever disaster might cometh. I'd run a mile, with most of the blokes I know would be out the door ahead of me.

I think there is a focus on portraying a real male as a hero. To have one who has doubts, worries, who is concerned with survival and saving their skin (who might even, whisper it, scream...) seems to go against what we want. And this is much to the detriment as there is then a vast gulf between the often slightly less than real life female, and the often much more than real life male.

In terms of female protagonists, there are loads in mainstream literature who are fabulously well realised and rounded: Scarlett O'Hara (who didn't run around waiting for Rhett, or even Ashley, but instead pulled down the curtains and used her womanly character to make the best of things), Scout in to Kill a Mocking Bird, Daisy in Gatsby - who was stronger than her husband (Fitzgerald is good at women, although he does dais-them a bit), and plenty more.

So, is is a SFF thing? Do we want a needy woman to be rescued. (not keen on it, here, but it seems to be a standard sometimes.) And do we want a man to do it? Personally I tend to fight against that trope, and applaud those who do.

 

[Mouse]

I pondered writing a blog on 'why I hate women' recently but then figured that I might offend some actual real-life women people who I actually quite like.

But, what brought this on is that all my female friends in my life at the mo are being super crap friends, whereas all my male friends are brilliant. Seriously brilliant.

So, um, yeah. That's on topic isn't it? Women just suck.

In my YA books my MC was a girl (sword-wielding, bad-tempered boyish girl, but a girl) and her bezzy was a boy. In my WiP at the mo, the two best mates are male.

Can't really think of anything at the mo which has two female friends in it. Like, close friends, and part of the main story, not a side thing.

 

[Hex]

I don't believe I forgot Mrs Smith! Argh!

@Mouse -- I think Need by Carrie Jones has a strong female friendship at the centre. It's very Buffy/ Willow.

 

[Mouse]

Don't know that one, Hex.

You know... something else has just occurred to me. I never hug my female friends. I hug my males friends though, no problem. Maybe I just don't relate to female/female relationships. They don't interest me, I don't particularly want to read about it because it's usually incredibly dull. And did I mention women suck?

Next thing I write though, is gonna have female mates. And they're not going to be daft.

 

[Gumboot]

At the risk of enflaming people, from my own personal observation (purely anecdotal) male-male friendships are much stronger than female-female friendships.

There's probably a biological reason for this; in the hunter-gatherer dynamic the women are in competition with each other because each is trying to gather as much as they can for their family - anything another woman gathers is something they miss out on.

By contrast, the men aren't necessarily capable of catching anything on their own, particularly when hunting the giant mammals that existed around the dawns of human society. Therefore the men have to work together, or they all go hungry.

 

[Mouse]

At the risk of enflaming people, from my own personal observation (purely anecdotal) male-male friendships are much stronger than female-female friendships.

I'd agree with that.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

At the risk of enflaming people, from my own personal observation (purely anecdotal) male-male friendships are much stronger than female-female friendships.

There's probably a biological reason for this; in the hunter-gatherer dynamic the women are in competition with each other because each is trying to gather as much as they can for their family - anything another woman gathers is something they miss out on.

By contrast, the men aren't necessarily capable of catching anything on their own, particularly when hunting the giant mammals that existed around the dawns of human society. Therefore the men have to work together, or they all go hungry.

Sorry, can't agree. I have many friendships, my strongest are female-female. And the most lasting. To say there was no biological reason for the child-nuturing sex to support and stick with each other seems to miss the point that unless kids can be raised, the species fails. And that takes women, mostly supported by women. So, they might go hungry if men didn't work in teams - child mortality would go up if women didn't and both threaten the survival of the species.

 

[Mouse]

I'm probably missing the point, springs, but there's more to women than babies, isn't there? This is what irks me in a lot of things, in fiction, in real life. That women seem to be defined by their children (and/or men) and nothing else.

 

[Hex]

I agree with springs.

In my experience, women have closer relationships. I'm not sure this is entirely relevant, though -- women do have close friendships (even if we argue that men's are closer) and these may not show up in literature. I don't think the absence of close female relationships is copying reality.

@ Mouse -- course there's more to women than babies -- but there's nothing more to evolutionary psychology, which is the hunting mammoths vs gathering roots argument.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I agree, Mouse, but the post I responded to indicated that men bonded because of their hunter-gatherer instincts. What I was trying to say was that equally important to going out there and killing a mammoth was procreating the species, and that often fell to women to do. It was a massively dangerous business having a baby - until quite recently - and mostly managed by women. So to say men are better at bonding because of their need to ensure survival of the species overlooked womens role in the same. I'm not sure I'm putting it very well, though.

When I was young, before kids, I planned to fight the good fight, work as an alpha female, do everything, and I failed miserably at that. Instead, I changed my life, and reworked it, but inevitably having children changed what I could or couldn't do. Although I'd have never stopped long enough to start writing if I hadn't reevaluated things, so I consider it a blessing. A painful one at the time, but still a blessing....

 

[Mouse]

Still kinda sounds to me that women are friends with women because they have babies. (But it's late and I'm fed up and tired so could be misreading entirely!)

 

[Hex]

There has (arguably) been an advantage to those women who look after each other when they have babies. Where there is mutual support, more babies are likely to survive -- therefore, those women who co-operated are more likely to pass on their genes, leading to an evolutionary reason for close female friendships/ co-operation.

I'm not totally convinced, honestly, but it's as good an argument as the one about men having close friendships so they can catch more mammoths to take home to feed to their babies (because it's all about babies, evolution, not just for women but for men too)

 

[Jo Zebedee]

And therein lies the rub - my female friendships aren't based on raising kids. There's lots of other things like virtual cake, and days out, and just the things that makes friendships. And I have lots of male mates - I grew up surrounded by blokes - and both are to be celebrated. But if I was a cave woman, it'd have been the women I'd have had to rely on.