The Problem with Female Protagonists
By Jo Eberhardt | August 6, 2016 |
Photo by Flickr user bDom
A few months ago, I read a fascinating article on the Stuff You Missed in History Class blog. After receiving innumerable complaints about their podcast which boiled down to either “you talk about women too much” or “you only talk about women”, Tracy Wilson went back over the episodes they’d produced and put together graphs showing the breakdown between episodes focused on men, women, and ungendered events. You can see the results here. But, unsurprisingly, (spoiler alert!) they showed that stories about women made up roughly 30% of their content.
Those results tie directly into the recent research that shows that men talk significantly more than women in a mixed group, but women are perceived as being more talkative and taking up more time. There are various explanations for this disparity between objective reality and perception, from old-fashioned sexism to differences in male and female speaking styles. Whatever the reason, however, it’s safe to say that the old “truism” about women talking three times as much as men is exactly the opposite of truth.
I was reminded of both these things a few days ago when my nine-year-old son asked, “Why do we only ever read books with girl main characters?”
Now, as a mother of two boys, I take particular care to make sure that the books I read to them feature a mix of male and female protagonists. For every Charlie and the Chocolate Factory there’s a Matilda. For every Harry Potter there’s a Wrinkle in Time. So my first reaction was to feel pleased that my attempt to provide gender-equality in our shared stories was working.
We’ve just finished reading Catherynne M. Valente’s glorious novel The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her own Making, starring September — a twelve-year-old girl from Omaha who travels to Fairyland– and have moved directly on to Barbara O’Connor’s How to Steal a Dog, starring Georgina — a young girl living in a car with her mother and little brother when they suddenly find themselves homeless. I don’t remember what we read before that, but after my moment of pride, I fell into doubt. Have I pushed the pendulum too far and deprived my son of his heroic male role-models.
So I took my son by the hand and went to find out whether his assertion that we mostly (because “always” was clearly an exaggeration) read about female protagonists was true.
We took all his novels out of his bookcase, and sorted them into three piles based on the protagonist’s gender: ensemble (eg. The Wishing Tree), male, and female. And that’s when I discovered something interesting. Despite my concerns that I’d overdone it with the girl characters, and despite my conscious intention to provide a 50/50 split, only 27% of his books have a female protagonist, compared to 65% with a male protagonist.
So that was my son’s question answered. Not only don’t we “always” read books about girls, we don’t even mostly read books about girls.
Curious, I went through my own bookshelves. I fared even worse, with only 24% having a female protagonist. Again, I was shocked. I make a concerted effort to ensure that I seek out books with female protagonists. How did this happen?
And that brings us back to the studies I mentioned at the beginning of this article. Research shows that both men and women overestimate the amount of time women speak in a mixed group compared to men. In fact, when a science teacher specifically provided equal talking time to both male and female students in his class as part of an experiment, everyone involved perceived that the girls were given 90% of his time and attention. Including the teacher himself.
So maybe the same thing happens with books.
Here’s the problem with female protagonists: There aren’t enough of them.
And we don’t even notice it.
As a society, we’re absolutely dreadful at judging the comparative airtime for male and female voices. I’ve seen forums where people name ten or twenty classic novels with female protagonists, as though that’s proof that there are “plenty” of good books “for girls”. But what they’re not including is the hundreds and thousands of books with male protagonists as a comparison.
It happens when people talk about movies, too. (Visited the comments section on an article about the new Ghostbusters movie recently?) Naming a couple of films with female leads doesn’t prove anything — we’re living in a world where over 70% of the lead characters in films are male, and even in movies with female protagonist such as Frozen and The Hunger Games, male characters speak more than female characters.
I don’t know how to fix any of this. It’s a huge issue, and goes beyond everyday sexism and into our ability to even perceive everyday sexism. All I can do is be aware of it, and actively seek out books with female protagonists. And, of course, write books with female protagonists.
It’s not just girls who need fictional female role-models; it’s everyone.
Do you consciously try to find a balance between male and female protagonists in the books you read and write? How do the books on your bookshelf stack up?
[coffee]
Jo Eberhardt is a writer of speculative fiction, mother to two adorable boys, and lover of words and stories. She lives in rural Queensland, Australia, and spends her non-writing time worrying that the neighbor’s cows will one day succeed in sneaking into her yard and eating everything in her veggie garden.
Jo,
You have me plundering through my books, checking out their gender specificities. Specificity…I love how that word whistles twixt the lips. Say it with me: “Specificity.”
Okay, now that I’ve wandered down that tangential path-less-taken, let me find my way back to the subject at hand — my bookshelves. Wow. I’m embarrassed to say there aren’t many books with female protagonists. There are a few, written by women, but all the ones written by men feature male protagonists (and a few of the ones written by women, too). I’d say it’s about a 70-30 split.
Thing is, I enjoy the male being the protagonist. That’s not to say I don’t love strong female leads in those same books, though (HP, for instance: Harry, protag; Hermione, strong female lead). Maybe that’s because I’m male and, as a reader, identify and “fit into the skin” better if the protag is male.
But I do love female ensemble books and movies (like “The Help” and “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood”), as well as those with a female protagonist. Take the movie, “Lucy,” for instance. It was probably only a two-star movie, but I’ve already seen it like, three or four times. I thought it had a good premise, tons of action, and Scarlett Johansson was a kick-ass lead. I just don’t find a lot of them like that.
I guess, for me, it really doesn’t matter — they just have to be good.
Great subject! Can’t wait to read more comments.
I totally agree about Hermionie – she’s such a great character. And regardless of what many people have said about her being the true hero of the books, I think HP as the protagonist is more powerful. One of the first things my son said when we realised how many of his books have male protagonists is: “What about Hermione? And Camicaze? (from the How to Train Your Dragon books).
However, I think you’ve said two very interesting things in your comment.
1. “Maybe that’s because I’m male and, as a reader, identify and “fit into the skin” better if the protag is male.”
2. “I guess, for me, it really doesn’t matter — they just have to be good.”
In many ways, I think the second point is very telling about the first. After all, what is “good”? There’s no objective measure of the “goodness” of a story. (Leaving aside the writing quality, which is obvious to writers — although not so much to readers.) If you walk into a room of random people and ask whether the 50 Shades books are “good”, you’ll get a whole range of responses — many of them fervently contradictory.
When we talk about whether a book is “good” as a reader, often what we mean is “do I relate to the character?”. So it’s much easier to make the statement that you don’t care about gender as long as the book is good when you “fit into the skin” of the majority of published books.
There was an interesting research project done some years ago in relation to gender and hirability. (https://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-job-rather-jennifer) What the researchers found was that given the exact same resume, one with a male name (John) and one with a female name (Jennifer), STEM scientists overwhelming rated John as more competent than Jennifer. That has nothing to do with whether either (imaginary) applicant was “good” and everything to do with subconscious sexism.
Now, I’m not in any way implying that you are consciously sexist in your reading choices. We have to remember that we live in a society that has been shaped by centuries of institutional sexism that affects us all (both men and women) on a deep, subconscious level. But consider this: girls are expected from a young age to be able to “fit into the skin” of male characters. I think it’s incredibly important not only that girls have a range of female characters to represent them, but also that boys (and men) learn to do the same with female characters.
Part of that is obviously related to the type of female characters out there. But part of it is also the popularity of good female characters — and how the publishing industry believes books about women will sell.
Also, as an aside, I found that 45% of my books were written by women, and 62% of my son’s books were written by women (helped by J.K. Rowling and Cressida Cowell). Generally speaking, female authors are much more inclined to write male protagonists than male writers are to write female protagonists. Possibly because of that whole “fit in their skin” thing.
I guess what I meant by “fitting in the skin” had less to do with whether the protag was male or female and more to do with the subject material and, as you said, whether I could relate. And by “good,” I meant whether it was written well, had a good storyline, believability (even in fantastical genres), and concerned a topic I found interesting. Nothing to do with sexism, ingrained or otherwise. I read women, men, and am open to most subject matter.
In the case of, let’s say, Divine Secrets…. I loved that book. Female protag. Female ensemble. Female author. But I chose it for none of those reasons. I don’t look for that, I look for the story. I chose DSofYYS for the deeply emotional story of a love lost, of lasting friendships, of feeling trapped in life, of the effect of alcoholism and drug addiction on the family unit…of lives interwoven into a tapestry. And no, I don’t think it would have played nearly as well with men in the leads. But it didn’t make me want to run out and buy Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, either. That storyline wasn’t my cuppa.
I don’t specifically rule out books because they have women protagonists, I rule them out if I don’t find them interesting. Would I be one of the people in the room who considered 50 Shades “good?” No. Did it have anything to do the protag? No. It’s just that I “didn’t fit into the skin” (or can/wanted to “relate”) to being swept away by a millionaire and used as his sex kitten. It’s not my fantasy. But it was evidently one for millions of people. They could relate…fit into the skin (as vicariously as they dared) of Anastasia (or Christian). Plus, no, I didn’t care for the writing.
And I don’t care for either a male or female protagonist who’s not flawed…who’s invincible and doesn’t need the help of others. I see that kind of protag written for both genders.
I don’t want to argue with you — you know yourself and your own motivations better than I do. Perhaps you’re right, and the reason you have more male protagonists than female on your shelves is simply because the stories you’re drawn to are more likely to have a male protagonist because that’s what’s published. In which case, the whole thing could be recitified if there were more books with female protagonists published in that genre, with great writing, and engaging storylines.
However, you’re a rare bird amongst men. (You already knew that.) As was mentioned below, 80% of men won’t read a book by a female writer, or with a female protagonist. And that’s a much bigger issue than one person’s reading habits. (Regardless of how positively amazing that one person is.)
What’s interesting about this exchange is how no woman can ever point out sexism without a man piping up, “But I’M not sexist!” and expecting not only to be uncritically believed, but to be lavished with praise in return. They are ingenious in the way they get women to stop focusing on oppressive systems and start focusing on what great men they are and how different they are than the garden-variety, knuckle-dragger sexists.
I also love how they bloviate about themselves and what THEY like and how not-bothered they are by sexism. Yeah, dudes, we know it doesn’t bother you. That’s actually a big part of the problem.
You’re right.
People—all people: male or female, you or me, white, brown, or blue skinned—are biased. That’s part of being human. We simply require categories and stereotypes to cope with and make sense of the magnitude of variety in the world.
It’s important to recognize that, to own it, so that when our biases are challenged we can bite our tongues and listen, and hopefully widen our perspective.
That said, your tone is downright insulting. What you pointed out is not unique to men.
We can’t force each other to listen. Attack, and defenses go up and emotions get riled (as I imagine yours are right now). So please, point out the issue—but do it gently. There is no need to alienate a man who is at least attempting to listen. We cannot make change without help from both sides.
Having a bias is very different from systemic oppression and sexism. You discuss MK’s “tone”, that they “attack”, that their “emotions are riled”, suggesting they “bite their tongue” when they have something to say – these are all sexism at it’s finest. Women are told on a daily basis to smile more, act more rationally, that they are too emotional. This article discussed why females are perceived as talking more than males, when they aren’t. It’s all connected to our patriarchal society and sexism. Perhaps take your own advice and “recognize and own” your biases. It’s incredibly important to call people out on ingrained oppression/sexism, so that our society can continue to evolve. We cannot make change if we don’t point out where change needs to be made. And if a man feels alienated or uncomfortable by someone pointing out his (albeit often unintentional) sexism, then, again, that is part of the larger problem. At least the alienated man can walk away from sexism and never really think about it if he chooses.
Finally, the “blue people” (the ones from Kentucky, who I assume you are referring to) are white and have a genetic blood condition. Perhaps this is not the case, but listing strangely colored people is something many do in an attempt to dismiss race and racism, although that’s an entirely different topic…
This is for KL, but apparently we’ve reached the limits of nested comments.
I want to say thank you. I am not your enemy, and thank you for not treating me as one. Your response is exactly the kind of answer that illuminates without the antagonizing I was referring to. We cannot effect change without BOTH sides.
I did want to clarify that the biting of the tongue comment was not directed MK, but at the men in this situation. And that blue people referred more to scifi than the folks in Kentucky (that was new to me), and was meant as an inclusive statement—I don’t care what your skin color or gender identification is, we are all human beings and deserve to be treated with respect. I do not want to dismiss or belittle the fight against racism and sexism in any way.
Hi M.K.
I’m guessing you’re new to the WU community — or that you’ve just dropped by for this post — so you probably don’t know Mike as an individual, or that he and I have discussed these issues in the past, and exactly how bothered he is by sexism in general and sexism in the publishing industry in particular.
You’re correct, there are a large number of people — mostly men, but also some women — who use the “I’m not sexist” response to indicate that if a system doesn’t discriminate against them, they don’t care about it. It’s important that we draw attention to that behaviour. However, I also believe it’s important to do so respectfully.
All the best.
Thanks, Jo.
It’s been a week since you wrote your article and it’s still bringing in comments. That’s the sign of a well-written piece on a great topic that sparks interest and civil discussion. Congrats again, my friend.
As a matter of fact, it was a new comment that brought me back to this thread. I was reading another essay and saw a comment needing approval from the first-timer below who disagreed with the 80% statistic mentioned elsewhere in the comments (you referred to it in your second response to me). I wanted to peek in on the conversation.
I was surprised, to put it mildly, that it was on my thread, and that my comment had generated any replies at all (other than yours).
M.K., if you’ll pardon any further bloviations or ingenious ways to manipulate on my part, may I point out how you made a great many assumptions about me on very little information, and how I found it just as interesting that “no man can ever discuss sexism” without being reduced to a garden-variety, knuckle-dragging sexist who’s only fooling himself as being otherwise.
I’ll not sit here and qualify myself to you, however, there are many “standards” placed on males — by both sexes — in which I fall extremely short (again, pardon the bloviations): I’ve never been athletic; I’m lanky and clumsy; I’m twenty-five pounds underweight; I’m a pacifist; I prefer the arts to sports; I love to cook; I can sew; I used to cry during those sad, long-distance phone call commercials; I’ve watched Kate and Leopold more times than I can remember; and a host of other traits (including long walks on the beach) that have been a source of ridicule by both boys and girls and/or men and women all my life.
It took a lifetime to get comfortable in my white, male skin, but I finally did. Even still, whenever I walk down the romance aisle and see the chiseled, hunky men on every single cover, or browse through magazines and realize I’ll never look as good in those clothes as the models do, it takes every ounce of my energy not to blow money on a weight bench that’ll become a clothes rack on its first day in the house.
M.K., while I may respect your right to your candor, I could do without the assumptions.
All best.
80% of men won’t read a book with a female protagonist…..I doubt that stat
I can’t speak for all men but personally I prefer to read books and watch shows with a male protagonist because I’m a guy and it’s hard for me to relate to a female protagonist seeing as I can’t share in her interest in guys and considering I just can’t see myself as a woman. Fpr example FLCL an anime has a male protagonist however season 2 and 3 will have a female protagonist which is really disappointing to me because I was easily able to put myself into Naoto’s (guy) shoes but I just can’t really see myself relating even personality wise to the new female protagonist now I could be wrong but for example as to why I can never relate to female protagonists in just about anything is the ideology which is a big bs lie that women are more innocent than men or they want sex less than men its as if the media portrays women as being attracted to men less than how much men are attracted to women which is bs and makes no sense so considering this main reason I know I wont be able to relate to the female protagonist because I know they wont make a genuine portrail of an actual female which is very very rare.
I have been reading Agatha Christie since 6th grade as my comfort food. I would have said there were as many Maples as Points. Not so 33 Points and only 12 Maples. You are right!
The problem with Hermionie is that she is too good. As a protagonists she would be labeled a Mary Sue. However a secondary character whom the hero goes to for help she works wonderfully.
On the rest of your post my personal reading habits lean strongly the other way, but this takes considerable effort on my part. Finding good speculative fiction books with female protagonists takes a fair bit of effort.
Konrad, I don’t know how much of the Harry Potter books vs. movies you’ve consumed. For the movies, I think you’re right. Hermione is too perfect. But in the books she’s not. There are subtle shifts in dialogue and actions from the books to the movies that make Hermione stronger and smarter, while simultaneously making Ron a buffoon.
Too true.
I loved the Harry Potter books but the movies took a special something out of them. The depth, the sidelong commentary on personality and traits were totally lost in the movies. Hermoine is a little miss know-it-all with no character of her own in the movies but she’s a fierce, strong-willed gryffindor in the books. And the humour, the wicked little bits of humour in the books, were totally lost.
On the “fitting in skin” thing, I think it’s true that men are a little blind to being raised to not have to see themselves in a “not them” skin and a great example – to go off topic – is the Olympics in Rio.
Three times so far women have made great accomplishments, and all four times they have been referenced back to men. 1. The Chicago Times running the headline that the WIFE of a Chicago athlete won, not even including her name. 2. A record breaking swimmer having her accomplishments credited to her husband/coach immediately after winning. 3. Another record breaking swimmer being described as “swimming like a man” and 4. A gymnast being said to be the “Kobe Bryant” of gymnasts.
I think what this shows us is that some men CAN’T see themselves in the skin of women characters and heroes, and that to even comprehend the accomplishments of those women they need to translate them into men.
And this is, of course, simply conditioning. Women learn to see themselves as male characters (I wonder what would happen if someone studied the genderswap cosplays to see how many swapped male to female vs female characters to male), as minorities learn to see themselves in white characters’ skin because we have no choice. But White Men don’t need to do that, ever really. So they don’t learn to do it.
Male to female crossplays are my favorite to do, and let me tell you, you get heat for it. x.x
I don’t need to look through all my books (and it would take forever) to know that we have more male protagonist books than female. I also admit I don’t make a big effort to balance out the books my son read–mostly because I’m just happy if he’s reading. His favorite books, however, are Harry Potter and Matilda and The Hunger Games.
He’s never cared about whether a movie had a girl or boy lead. His favorite character from Star Wars is Ahsoka–a female. I have hope that he’s on the way to being fair-minded and all that. Fingers crossed!
I’ve long found it frustrating how women are often expected to relate to male characters but men are rarely expected to relate to females characters. Same thing happens with people of color. They’re supposed to feel okay watching white people all the time. But white people have a harder time relating to POCs.
I don’t exactly disagree with Mike’s statement that the stories just have to be good, but at the same time, our blind spots, our perceptions, and our biases often influence what we think is good. Our favorite stories aren’t usually our favorite stories because there are the best stories. They’re our favorite because they speak to us. And a book can’t speak to us if we aren’t listening.
That said, I remember a friend who once said she refused to read Harry Potter because the Harry wasn’t a girl and that we need more books with girls. Yes. Yes, we do need more books with girls. But at the same time, if an an author imagines a character, it isn’t always possible to imagine that character differently. I’m not sure I’m being clear with that, I believe that Rowling said she thought of Harry while on a train. She “saw” a boy walking through the train car and she knew she had to tell his story. It seems unfair to demand she change the gender to suit others. And I’m sure others on this thread will say as much. Someone always does in these conversations.
But we can open ourselves to the possibility of writing differently. I know some writers balk at the idea out of fear. “What if I get it wrong?” Indeed. What if? But we’re writers. We can get any character wrong. We can also try to see ourselves in someone else.
My current work-in-progress has lots of women. It’s a sci-fi fairy tale, and since I’m reimagining the universe, I can get away with a lot. I don’t have gender balance! There are mostly women and a few token men. Women have been token characters (or missing all together) that I thought that was fair. I’ve also made most of my characters not white. I picked names from other continents. And I didn’t do it to tick a list or anything. It felt right. It’s an alternate reality in the future. Of course there are different types of people.
I could talk about this topic for hours, but I’ll stop now.
Thanks for the article.
I totally agree that our favourite stories are the stories that speak to us. And, sociologically speaking, what we like is actually less about personal, individual choice and more about cultural influences, what we’ve been exposed to in the past, and how we position the item in terms of our own personal identity. It’s in interesting perspective when we realise that we have far less personal choice about our personal choices than we think we do.
I also completely agree with what you said about HP. I don’t for a second think that it’s in the best interest of anyone — writer or reader — for artists to dismiss an idea because it features a male protagonist. Or to try to shoehorn a female protagonist into a story where you’ve “seen” that it should be a male. So, yeah, I’m not at all advocating for automatically gender-swapping all protagonists or anything of the kind. That would be silly and counter-productive.
As a side note, my son loves Ahsoka as well. She’s his second favourite Star Wars character. (Yoda being his favourite.)
Thanks for commenting!
I didn’t think you were suggesting that. But I’ve seen these conversations elsewhere, and I always see someone furious that anyone would dare dictate what kind of character to have–and I don’t think that’s what anyone is actually doing. It’s a great topic. I wish more people understand how culture really does influence their personal choices. No one operates in a vacuum.
Yes. A thousand times yet.
I’m adding a third and fourth votes for sons loving Ahsoka — a vivid example of how a great character can capture guys’ hearts if we can get them to give her a chance.
Maybe everyone needs to write the first part of a trilogy with a bloke at the helm, then give the lead to a female in books 2 & 3, once we’ve got the men hooked :)
Fascinating stats you came up with, Jo. I’d have assumed (in part because there are so many female writers now) that the balance was much more 50-50. Perception vs reality. Wow.
That’s exactly what Virginia Woolf did in Orlando. The character starts off male and then becomes female. It’s a fascinating read and the movie with Tilda Swinton is lovely.
Hi Jo–
After ten days off the grid, I’m just now getting to your post, and the remarkable response it generated. A propos of your perusal of your own books, it might be interesting to go back to them, and keep track of how many male and female authors develop protagonists not of their own gender. How many women feature a man at the center of their stories? How many men feature a woman? I’d do this myself, but I’m too lazy.
As for who’s doing most of the talking, I have a keen wish to keep living, so I won’t touch that. But I just finished passing through various airports and hotels, and I feel confident in saying this: very few people of either sex are talking at all. They are staring blankly at small screens, or compulsively exercising their thumbs.
Hi – I’ve been reading these remarks — all good, but I haven’t (yet) seen any that speak to the conditioning of TV. More people watch TV than read books, from an early age, and there are so many more male roles than female that –even though it’s a bit better lately — for decades it has been ridiculous.
Marta, thank you for the insight, and I agree completely on guys having issues identifying with women. The popular books with my crowd in junior high and high school were the dragonlance novels. There is a female character that was stated by many of my male friends to be their favorite character, and yet the book from her perspective was their least favorite.
Personally, when it comes to writing, wuality, and good, I do seek out female authors and female protags. There is less of a tendancy to rely on tropes. With a woman writing a female character, I can expect growth, depth, a lack of stupid misunderstandings as a plot point, and great. Emotionally charged adventure. And when a woman writer writes a male character, I’m guaranteed the same. Male writer, whether male or female protag, it’s a crapshoot. My first sword and sorcery book was The Hero and The Crown, and honestly? I’ve yet to read it’s equal in the genre. Young boy off on his own without his parents learning magic and fending off evil? Grace Chetwin’s Gom Gobblechuck series beats the snot out of any such book written by a guy. Hell, I’ve discovered over the years that a lot of authors I thought broke that mold don’t. I was always very impressed with Andre Norton, and his ability to write women leads. Then I was corrected by a friend and discovered andre was a woman’s name in this case. And she wrote under a male pen name as well.
Which does make me wonder as well, how many great novels that people assume were written by a man were written by a woman under a pen name as the only way to sell the book.
Hi Jo, thank you for this. Do you think it could be related to what genre we read?
As a teen, I read romance, clearly female protags (we’re talking back in the 70s when they were single pov) and I read some action stories, such as Alistair McLean and Ian Fleming, which had male protags. Of course, none of my readings then met the Bechdel test.
Now I read mostly Women’s Fic. Female protags but do women have relationships that can be separate from men? Hm…. time to scout out my bookshelves and my what-I’ve-read-list from the library.
As a pastor serving a bi-racial church, I’ve heard something similar. Once a new group of people, who look different from the settled worship community, exceed….was it the 20-30% mark, it was low…then long-term worship members become uncomfortable, which can then lead to various anxious behaviors.
I definitely think there’s a genre distinction that can be made. Romance does tend to have female protagonists, as does women’s fiction. But this ties directly into why there’s a need for a genre like “women’s fiction” at all. (Obviously because of the underlying belief that men won’t read fiction about women, but fiction about men is for everyone.)
But that still leaves us in the situation of wondering how women who don’t like romance stories find protagonists who look like them — and, of course, how men who DO like romance find the same.
Thanks for commenting!
This has long been my struggle. I like adventure, and science fiction and humor… and they all seem to be dominated by men — and often are very laddish, which is disappointing. I like the big ideas and the big heroics, but often cringe at the portrayal of women, or their complete absence (first Foundation novel, anyone?)
I think modern sci-fi and fantasy portrays women a whole lot better than Heinlen and Asimov and the like. But there’s still room for improvement.
The Hobbit and Moby Dick are two of my favourite books, both have entirely male casts. I would happily read a story featuring only female characters, does anyone know of any?
Very interesting. Thank you!
Thanks, Valerie. Glad you liked it.
At the risk of getting pelted with rotten tomatoes for having a different p.o.v., I gotta say that, FIRST, I want a good story, and I don’t care what gender the protagonist wears. Second, I understand that balance is a good thing, that we don’t have balance in pretty much any sphere, and that balancing requires effort. Third, I hate that establishing balance feels like a competition, because it perpetuates an “us v. them” mentality that consumes a lot of energy. Fourth, I write stories from both male and female points of view, because, for me, the story has to be told by whoever tells it best. Please throw only overripe fruit. Thanks.
Hi Delaney.
No rotten fruit here — all perspectives are welcome. :) In terms of your first point, I agree that a story needs to be written well regardless of the protagonist’s gender. However, if you look up to my reply on Mike’s comment, you’ll see that I also note that the way we decide whether something is “good” isn’t as cut-and-dried as we might think.
Our perceptions of what we like are based not only on quality, but also on our previous experiences — what stories we’ve been exposed to in the past — and so if we grow up reading primarily male protagonists (which, I’d argue, most of us have), then male protagonists are going to automatically appear to better, if only because they feel more natural.
There’s also an element there that ties into what types of books are being published with female protagonists. I have to admit that I’m always dubious about going into a fantasy epic with a female lead — partly because all the fantasy epics I read as a child/teenager had male protagonists, and partly because the few I’ve read with female protagonists have been absolutely awful. (As a note, Elizabeth Moon’s Paksenarrion series completely changed my mind about this.)
I’m not sure I agree with your third point that establishing balance means creating a competitive us vs them mentality. At least, that’s not how I approach it — other people may vary. Making a case for more female protagonists doesn’t imply that all male protagonists should be banned or vilified. Just that it’s important that both genders are represented fairly in literature. After all, writers (and all artists) change the world more than politicians and activists. If social change doesn’t start with us, where will it start?
Finally, kudos to you for writing both male and female protagonists. I absolutely agree that the story needs to be told from the perspective it needs to be told. As I said, I’m not advocating for outlawing male protagonists. However, women are a lot more comfortable writing male protagonists than men are writing female protagonists. And the only way to change that is to expose boys and men to female protagonists.
Thanks so much for your comment.
You mention the Deed of Paksenarrion series as changing your mind about fantasy, but I have a comment about that. I read a lot of fantasy, mostly written by women, about women-in fact, I am getting to the point where I don’t even bother to start books by men about men, except where the premise is unusual.
BUT-as to what I was going to say about Paksenarrion, I had read the saga many years ago, and liked it very much. I recently reread it and actually found that I didn’t like it as much. I found the character an unconscionable prig upon rereading and the world largely an unmitigated ripoff of Tolkien. There was a near thirty year gap between my initial read and the one last year, and I suspect that my tastes have matured considerably and I had more experience with the high fantasy genre.
One of the things I love about books is how they seem completely different depending on which stage of your life you read them. I’ve had similar experiences with books and movies, where the first time I read/watched them, I thought they were the best thing ever — they spoke to me in exactly the way I needed at that particular time. But rereading or rewatching years later left me wondering what the hell I ever saw in them.
Some of that probably has to do with our own lived experiences. Some of it probably has to do with the way we remember stories — we often build them up and change them in our memories, so that the original can’t hold a light to the version in our minds. And some of it, yes, is that the stories age and are no longer as relevant to the world we live in.
I’m not going to argue about Paksenarrion’s world being heavily influenced by Tolkien. It is. That’s true of most epic fantasy published in the 80s. I found it less obviously a rip-off than the majority of 80s fantasy, but it’s still there.
As to whether she’s an unconscionable prig…. That’s a matter of personal preference in character types, I suppose. I wouldn’t describe her that way, but then she’s a paladin. Self-righteousness kinda goes with the territory. Whether or not that appeals to you is less a reflection on the book, and more a reflection on what you’re looking for in a character at this stage of your life.
Oh so much agreement on life stages. I loved Carole Nelson Douglas in high school. The taliswoman and sword and circlet series were favorites of mine, but I tried to reread them a cxouple of years ago and found them… problematic in the way certain tropes were used.
You’re raising excellent questions, Jo. As a reader, I’ve always been very gender- and genre-agnostic, but as I studied the publishing business I belatedly realized that I’m anomalous in that respect. I know guys who wouldn’t even *think* of reading a book by a woman and/or about a woman – a reality that just baffles me.
Unfortunately many men remain oblivious to what are often unconscious acts of sexism. A telling example was the way two generations of male Trumps recently responded to questions from the media about sexual harassment in the workplace, both writing it off as simply not being a problem for a “strong” woman. Scary and disappointing…
But I first became aware of the male/female literary disparity back when my daughter was in elementary school, and she pointed out how the main character in *every* book on their reading list was male. She asked me why their teachers weren’t having them read any books about girls – a question that simultaneously broke my heart and pissed me off.
Me, I love reading books with female protagonists, from “Scout” Finch to Stephanie Plum, from Elizabeth Bennet to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (yes, she’s a character from TV and film, but there are also some excellent novelizations of her stories). But I’m sadly aware that as a male reader, I’m the exception, not the rule.
But in answer to your question: do I make those choices consciously, purposely trying to achieve a blend of genders in my main characters? Nope. I just read what I want.
That works for me, but for those who find they’re predominantly reading books about guys, maybe people can chime in with some book recommendations that could inject some literary estrogen into their reading?
Thanks so much for your comment, Keith. I love every word of it.
I know far too many men who assume hat any book with a female lead will be boring and/or solely about romance and clothes. So they won’t read them. This even considering that they aren’t consciously sexist, and would never assume that a woman in real life was boring or only interested in boys and clothes. But that is a reflection of not having read books with female protagonists, I suppose.
Actually, I know many women who feel the same way, and won’t touch a book without a male protagonist — preferably written by a male author. Institutionalised sexism affects us all.
… your comment is so wonderfully therapeutic. Thank you. :)
… you comment is so wonderfully therapeutic. Thank you. :)
Jo, this is brilliant! And sadly, so true. On so many levels. It reflects so many societies’ view of women — as “other” and lesser. The tacit “standard” of everything is male. They’re the “set” everyone else is a “subset.” I could not agree more with everything you say here, and will refrain from going on and on about it, because my head will explode, and it’s such a nice Saturday morning, I want to keep it in one piece for a bit longer. Thank you so much for point this out!!
Yes! I’d just add that the tacit “standard” of everything is *white* male.
It’s funny, Barbara, I DID put “white” and then edited it out, because I got to thinking about the worldwide sexism that permeates just about every culture. But here, in this country, YES, white male. So true!!!!
Thanks so much, Lisa. I totally agree about men being the “set”. That’s why I chose the accompanying picture I did. One of my first awakenings to the role women have in literature was actually via the Smurfs. In a world where all the characters are named after their unique ability — Hefty, Brainy, Jokey, etc — the one female character’s unique ability is to be…. female. Smurfette is, to me, a symbol of everything that’s wrong with society’s view of women.
You see that idea in so many films and books, where each man can be identified as smart or cowardly or geeky or strong or damaged or whatever. But women are… women. End of story. And even the attempt to give women a more three-dimensional role has resulted in women being “strong” or nothing, where strong is defined as beautful, sexy, smart (but not too smart), capable (but not too capable), and non-threatening to male.
A great answer to the question of female protagonists is given by Hugh Howey, author of the Wool series and others: https://youtu.be/Tdi8zmg2Oq0?t=25m. We definitely need more, and better, female protagonists.
I’ll say that I actually like stories with female MCs better than male, especially if they’re “underdog” stories as Howey describes. Need an example? Compare Mary “Jacky” Faber, L.A. Meyer’s female protagonist in the historical novel Bloody Jack, to Jim Hawkins, the classic boy hero of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Both stories involve plenty of sailing and swashbuckling on the high seas, and RLS is at the top of his writing game, but Jacky bursts out of the page – fierce, vulnerable, cocky, funny. Next to Jacky, poor Jim Hawkins is at best a faded wallflower.
Thanks for your comment and the link, Doug. I haven’t read Bloody Jack, but it’s on my TBR list now!
SO interesting to think about this, Jo. I’m another longtime romance reader, so female protags are heavy, heavy on my shelves. And heavy in my childhood reading, as well, with everything L.M. Montgomery wrong being the heaviest rotation. In the adult fiction section of my bookshelves, I’m running at least 50/50, and if I included memoir, and excluded classic literature I read around college, it’d be mostly female-written and female protags.
But as I think about what I’ve read and loved in middle grade/YA fiction as an adult, boy protagonists are way more heavily represented. Still plenty of girls (Hunger Games, Sisters Grimm, Wrinkle in Time, Gallagher Girls), but lots more boys.
And I am writing a book series about male persons, and because of how I do POV, I can never pass the Bechtel test on these works. But there are other stories to tell after this, and some of them are bound to star women. #sigh
That said, your point is wider, and provides lots to chew over. So interesting (and sad) that the professor, knowing he was talking to males and females at a 50/50 rate, felt like the girls had dominated, just because they were equal.
Yeah, that result from the teacher surprised me, although it probably shouldn’t have. Our ability to accurately perceive the gender ratio is actually the biggest problem, in my opinion. I’m positive that if we were better at noticing when females are getting the short straw, things would change quickly. I don’t believe the majority of people are consciously or purposefully sexist — it’s a learned and subconscious thing.
As I mentioned above, my ratio of male to female authors was a lot closer to 50/50, which leads me to think about how women are much more comfortable writing male protagonists tan men are writing female protagonists.
Thanks, Natalie!
Jo,
What I find most interesting in this post is your point (and proof) about the difference between perception and reality. I doubt that increasing the number of books with female protagonists–while a great and worthy goal–will change that. I don’t know what will.
Pointing out the facts doesn’t seem to help. It’s been a hard lesson, but I’ve finally accepted that most people don’t share my respect for facts over feelings (my day job=engineer). It was a film of Moby Dick that brought it home to me: Ishmael realising that his logical arguments did not have one-tenth the power of Ahab’s appeal to the crew’s emotions.
That’s good news for us as fiction writers, though. Appealing to readers’ emotions through our stories gives our stories power. Perhaps the increased empathy that’s comes from reading fiction will begin to displace the fear-based dominance model of communication. I hope so.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/novel-finding-reading-literary-fiction-improves-empathy/
Barbara, I couldn’t have made that point better myself.
You said: “I doubt that increasing the number of books with female protagonists–while a great and worthy goal–will change that. I don’t know what will.”
Then you went on to share one of my absolute favourite articles about fiction increasing empathy. (Seriously, I must have read it a dozen times, and shared it a lot more than that.)
If you put those two things together, I think the answer to what will change things is clear. Reading fiction increases empathy. Reading fiction about women increases empathy towards women. As things stand — and as they’ve stood for the last however many decades — girls are expected to read and relate to male characters from a very young age. That increases girls’ empathy not just in general, but as they relate to men. On the other hand, boys aren’t expected (or, often, encouraged) to read or relate to female protagonists.
Imagine what would happen if they were.
Imagine would would happen with a new generation of boys growing up empathising with girls and women.
If both men and women increased in empathy towards both men and women, how would that affect their perception of male/female voice ratios?
I’m less certain than you, Jo. I think the percentage of men reading fiction is too small to change the culture. And the culture, as you’ve pointed out, drives the perception. But I can hope. And, again, I would LOVE to see more female protagonists.
Well, I’ve been described as idealistic more than once. So perhaps you’re right.
On the other hand, what better way to make a cultural change than by encouraging our children — both make and female — to be readers.
Jo,
I had to check my kindle. The division of male to female is roughly 50% male to 50% female.
I love a female protagonist. My reading materials have some fine ones.
Every thing from Elizabeth Moon’s Paksenarion to Michelle Sagara’s Elantra series.Sherri Tepper’s Jinian Footseer trilogy, Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series and Kat Richardson’s Greywalker series.
Andre Norton wrote a bunch of novels featuring female protagonists.
They are under-promoted. They are fabulous. They are out there. I for one would love to see more books and see them actively promoted.
Thank you for drawing attention to this.
G
I am forever grateful to you for introducing me to Paksenarrion, Gretch. Not only is it a brilliant series with a great female protagonist, it also made me realise that epic fantasy can be great with women.
You’re on the people who I figured would have a 50/50 split, if not tilting towards female protagonists. You’re an inspiration in so many ways.
Wonderful post, Jo. Many of the astute commenters have already weighed in on the disparity on their shelves, and though I am hugely fond of so many female protagonists – particularly in my own genre (epic fantasy) – I have that same disparity on mine.
Which is concerning, but more importantly to me today, you’ve challenged me to examine at my own work. I’m extremely fond of my female characters, and proud of them, if I may say. And though I consider each of my stories thus far to feature a male and a female protagonist, the males have played a more primary role in each. I write in close third, from multiple POVs, and in my current story I have two female POV characters and four male. I’m guessing their time on the page breaks down with a bit more weight to the two females (three of the four males are secondary characters).
Another issue: looking back over all of my finished manuscripts, most of my female POV characters are warriors and/or leaders. At the moment I can only think of three female POV characters (out of more than a dozen) that don’t fit those categories.
I consider myself a female-friendly fantasist, but obviously have some balancing to do. I hate to ever “force” anything, but I know that for me, being conscious of such things is a good first step toward a more balanced outlook.
Lo and behold, as I pondered the situation, a wonderful idea popped into my head for a future project. I’ve long been planning to move forward from the original trilogy, and I can perfectly see that next story from a female primary protagonist’s perspective. In fact, in thinking about the story, her goals, motivations, and their resulting conflicts will be the most interesting of all of my planned characters. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before (damn built-in – if unintended – sexist inclinations!).
So thanks for this serendipitous bit of inspiration, Jo. Thanks for the provocation!
That’s fantastic, V! So glad you’ve had an epiphany and come up with a completely new idea . I’m grinning from ear to ear.
I can’t wait to read your books. (I think I’ve said that multiple times before, but it’s still tue.)
Honestly, as a reader and writer of primarily urban fantasy and paranormal romance, I’m immersed in a highly woman-centered world. It’s only my enjoyment of horror and LGBTQIA fiction that diversifies my fiction in regard to gender. I realize a lack of women’s voices in literature and the world at large are problems, but it’s easy for me to forget about based on my own experience.
Actually, Urban Fantasy is a genre where it seems there are a lot more female protagonists than male*. (Being that that’s what I write, it makes me happy.) And romance of any kind — including paranormal — certainly has plenty of female protagonists.
As I said above, however, romance and women’s fictions are genres dominated by female protagonists, but they are both genres that are generally considered to be”only” for women. Whereas other fiction is considered to be for “everyone”. I certainly don’t want to minimise the number of female protagonists anywhere, but I think it’s important to note that female protagonists can also be for everyone.
* I used the word “seems” advisedly, because, as I noted in my article, our perception often doesn’t match the reality. Point in fact, I just looked up Amazon’s bestselling Urban Fantasy books (for today), and the ratio of female to male protagonists is 50/50. Which is a huge improvement on most genres, but it’s interesting (to me) that even a genre that feels dominated by women-centric stories is barely scraping even.
Aha! I knew someone would bring this up, and I’m glad you looked up and found an answer. :) I am male and writing urban fantasy, and I specifically chose a protagonist (two of them, actually) who is male because it was my perception that UF has mostly female protagonists. And in my broad-but-not-deep reading of UF, that seemed held out. Now I think EITHER I didn’t go broad ENOUGH, or am mis-remembering how many of each gender there were.
I was recently talking about this with another writer friend of mine (female), and she agreed, and said she ALSO did the same thing–picked a male protagonist for her novel because of the perceived imbalance.
MUCH food for thought in this post and in the comment section as well. An Internet first (or so it seems)! :)
Welcome to Writer Unboxed, Gary. (I’m going to assume you’re new around here due to your surprise about the quality of the comment section. A rarity on the internet. WU has the best community around, and the comments are often as thought-provoking as the articles.)
Before I specifically went and checked, I would have said that UF was dominated by female protagonists, too. And, in fact, I chose a male protagonist for a WIP for the same reason. None of us are immune to our perceptions being less than accurate!
I love this conversation. Thank you, Jo. So many imbalances are bubbling up to the surface these days. Maybe we’re actually ready to look at them honestly! Everyone has made sense to me in the comments above! But I’m also thinking about how often we say we want ‘kick-ass’ female protags. What about smart ones? Brainy ones? Brilliant ones? Do we really want girls who act like boys? Back in the 80’s, women started acting like men in the workplace. Aggressive, heartless. I thought back then, and I do now, that women have so much more to bring to the table than bad-ass man-behavior. Women have a whole different kind of ferocity than men, and an entirely different way of being in the world. I think men have been terrified of women for a very long time. and I think writers are going to be instrumental in changing that. Great discussion today!!
“But I’m also thinking about how often we say we want ‘kick-ass’ female protags. What about smart ones? Brainy ones? Brilliant ones?”
Excellent point, Susan. And although I have female characters who are more inclined to use their smarts than their physicality, I have my share of the opposite. I have, however, taken the opportunity to have female characters who are conflicted by the paradigm you describe. As I said, this is a day of assessing my awareness, and this discussion is much appreciated.
Also, I can’t wait to read your work! Happy Saturday.
I’m re-assessing, too, Vaughn. As a sworn lifetime Tomboy, I’ve alway loved the view from top of the tree. And I love physicality in a female character. I guess I’m fumbling around with what the girl-verson of that is. My main character has to face off with a dragon, after all. I’ve been observing men and woman in Yoga classes for 12 years and so many of the men approach everything with brute force, from the outside in. The women tend to source their power form the inside out. It’s a fascinating thing to watch.
Susan,
I liked that Lucy, whom I mentioned above, was a bad-ass female protag, but that wasn’t my only fondness for the character. She also showed vulnerability, fear of the impending loss of her humanity, and other facets which, for me, made her believable and likable. The bad-assedness was a plus (and made for great SPFX).
But take Claire, from Outlander, for example. Strong female lead, brainy (a field nurse), outspoken (especially in late 1700’s Scotland), resilient, yet compassionate, feminine, even submissive when she wants. I think she makes a great role model, too.
Susan,
I’m completely on board with you. I have been quite disheartened over my lifetime watching the carriage of women seeking equality too often slipping into reproducing male behavior (which hasn’t worked out so well for the world, has it? And that’s a huge point in bringing women forward.)
Smarts, yes, and a woman’s smarts don’t manifest the same as a male’s. Thank goodness. The spilt of gender, for whatever its biological cause, cut human wisdom in half. And to precede (with wisdom) the feminine needs to be revitalized, inculcated (in girls as well as boys) and allowed to flourish. May your characters rock with such smarts.
Thanks so much for your comment, Susan. I feel like I’ve responded to all your points in my comments above, but allow me to just briefly say that, yes, women have been pushed into the “kick-ass” role in a way that still doesn’t allow for true authenticity. Thus, my illustrating this article with a picture of the smurfs, where the males are recognised for their individual talents and the female is recognised for being…. female.
You’ve mentioned the smurfs a couple times in your replies and it just makes me think of the wee free men by Terry pratchett. The name is misleading because the protagonist is Tiffany aching and while she garnered the help of the wee free men (who are little blue men, women are rare) she is quite capable on her own.
Tiffany Aching is one of my literary heroes. Thanks for mentioning her. She’s a great example of a female protagonist who is quite capable on her own, but also able to ask for help when she needs it.
I never wanted female characters who “acted like boys,” but I always liked the ones who could kick ass as well as a boy, but used their wits and training to gain advantages rather than brute force.
I was a “tomboy” who wanted to climb trees in a pink dress because even as a kid I thought it was dumb the princesses didn’t save themselves. (This was long before Mulan faked being a boy to fight her own battles.) I still wear lipstick while teaching karate.
I like crime fiction best, though I read almost everything but plain romance because if people get together while doing other stuff, it’s one thing, but the people getting together being the only plot isn’t my thing. There are finally plenty of female characters of varying degrees of smart and damaged and “kick-ass” and competent and clever and domestic and young and old and professional and not. And yet, among thrillers and noir, the men still outweigh the women by a lot.
It’s great that what Marcia Muller and Sara Paretsky started has grown to include the things Megan Abbot is doing, Laura Lippman’s everything, the awesomeness of Zoe Sharp, and Gillian Flynn.
All that said, I still like a female character who kicks some ass.
I LOVE Zoe Sharp! But I’m as happy with the cozier characters of Judith Cutler and Joyce Holms.
Jo,
You’re absolutely right. A test run many times is: ask women (80% of readers and book purchasers) if they are comfortable reading books with male protagonists. The answer is basically always, Sure. Reverse the test and the 20% readership prefers males leads.
As goes the culture so goes its art. We have to be in it for the long haul. Before most languages were written, IE before our history was taking notes, there were matriarchal societies coexisting with patriarchal ones. Research indigenous tribes. And the swing of the pendulum is not done. I’m buying stock in the notion that paradigm shifts occur at glacial speed and then all at once.
(My speculative fiction first novel outlined such a paradigm shift–to a society of equals with females often as the ultimate authority.)
Glacial speed, then all at once. Oh, yes! Well said!
I love the idea of a paradigm shift happening with glacial speed and then all at once. Bring on the landslide!
That 80/20 rule is a huge thing. And one of the ways that it can manifest as well is that the 20% of men who happily read fiction with a female protagonist — and can’t imagine any other scenario — can find it difficult to see what rare and beautiful snowflakes they are in the broader community.
Thanks for commenting!
I love this post. As a mother of daughters, I was always vigilant to include girl-protagonists in our reading. A high school teacher, taking my summer literature class, once told me, “If the boys will buy in, the girls will behave,” to explain her usual choice of books for students. I like better the quote, “Well behaved women seldom make history.” (Laurel Thatcher Ulrich) Thank you for this essay!
Beautifully said, Bethany. “If the boys will buy in, the girls will behave” is really only one step away from “If the girls will behave, the boys won’t be tempted” or “If the girls will cover their knees, the boys won’t be distracted.”
I tried writing one of my stories with a male protagonist three times, and it just wouldn’t get going. Once I realized that it was the female protagonist’s story, I wrote her and “Hiding Magic” took off. Similarly, in another novel to be out in September, a walk-on female character stuck around and became the co-protagonist with the male character. I like female protagonists, it seems. However, the current WIP’s protagonist is a cat. A tomcat. Ah, well.
Hahaha. You know, one of the debates I had with my son about sorting books by gender was what to do with something like Charlotte’s Web, where the protagonist isn’t human. He eventually decided that gender is gender, irrespective of species.
I love hearing that you write female protagonists, Ray. It seems to be so rare for male writers. Awesomeness.
Heh, I just had the same thing happen. Brother and sister are the protags, and I realized when I got stuck that it’s HER revenge story, he’s just along for the ride. Plot flowed after that.
I’m a female & perhaps older than several at Writer Unboxed. But I WANT to read majority male protags.
I grew up reading & watching westerns. Since there aren’t many western books per se any more, my desired genre is the historical, particularly 19th century American. But I rarely find books to read in this genre because cover after cover after cover features a female protagonist.
I have tried to read a few of these but have found them unsatisfying. One of the reasons is too much time is given to worrying about the cut and clothing of the female character’s dress, her dramatic social interactions and the like. I don’t care! I want action!
So by default, as a reader, I have switched to reading thriller/suspense genre, which yes, I would agree, is likely dominated by male characters the majority of the time. Do I think female characters can be used quite successfully as leads in this genre? Sure! And I’d love to give them a try (as long as I don’t have to read excessive description of their agonies over clothing choices, etc.) & provided that, by contrast, the author doesn’t make them “over the top” trying to make them seem overly Rambo-ish.
So my experience has been opposite of what this post postulates. For me, it feels like the market caters too much to women who want a female lead (you know, the idea that men don’t read any more). At least with historical. I can’t speak to other genres.
I’ve come to loathe the recent slew of female characters, especially “kickass” or “strong” female characters. About as much as I dislike “typical” female characters, really, because neither of them are and represent anything I – a woman – can identify with and it is absolutely not what I want to read.
That’s why I prefer buying well-written books with male characters, as these usually behave as I would behave, they are active without constantly having to prove some point, and – when well-written – are far less idiotically gendered than female characters.
I can easily see why people get enough already of the recently written female characters, because they give me the hives as well.
Hi Brenda. Thanks for your comment. When I started reading it, my first thought was: “I wonder WHY Brenda wants to read mostly male protagonists.” Then you went ahead and answered the question.
Look, I’m with you. I have absolutely no interest in reading books where the protagonist, regardless of gender (although it’s almost always a woman), spends all their time talking and thinking about clothes, boys, and gossip. I’m not interested in those things in real life, and I certainly don’t want them in my fiction. Well… unless the clothing is a major plot point, or the character is a master of disguise, or they’re naked. In which case a mention is warranted.
But I think your reluctance to read female protagonists in any genre, then, is more an indictment of the publishing industry than it is a reflection of your wish to read male protagonists. I mean, if the choice was out there — if you could read a 19th century historical fiction novel featuring a woman devoid of clothing obsessions — I’m certain you’d be far less opposed to the idea.
I thought of it too late, but I highly recommend Nancy E. Turner’s “These is My Words”, featuring a naturally strong (and I emphasize naturally–not manufactured) female character. It’s a historical set in 19th century Arizona. I loved it so much I’ve read it twice and I rarely EVER read a novel more than once (except Zane Grey).
Brenda, I encountered much of the same issue–Westerns these days, unless strictly traditional Spaghetti, are often purely romance and, if female-centric, pretty superficial. Or, if the female character is “strong,” she’s no more than a man in a skirt. I am a huge historical fiction fan, but I detest the 5-page long, exhaustive fashion detailing. (Yes, the clothing was beautiful and interesting, but I’d like a story, please?) And I love American West history, but I detest the John-Wayne-with-the-little-woman-waiting-dutifully-at-home or, worse, the whore-with-a-heart-of-gold tropes…which is still mostly what comprises most Western fare.
So I wrote When Doves Fly, what I hope is an answer to those frustrations. I wanted to write a “strong” female MC who wasn’t just a man in a skirt. A vulnerable, flawed woman who doesn’t just blow things up, but must find courage and use her brain to grow as a character. She must rescue herself (rather than having a white knight.) And while there’s a romantic sub-plot, the story is about her and how she navigates a male-dominated world in an effort to find independence from those males, without the unreality of rejecting them entirely. It’s more drama than action, perhaps, but I don’t believe it’s the silly drama of clothes and socialite parties found in many histfics. (Fair warning, it examines prostitution with realism and graphic scenes, because prostitution was an integral part of the social fabric.)
However, because it’s a female lead, of course it’s a female protag on the cover. She’s not bodice-ripping, but it would be a bit silly to NOT have a female on the cover (and only a female) since it is HER story. So try not to dismiss all of those. ;)
Anyway, I wanted to say I understand the frustration with modern histfic Western fare, and there are some of us who are trying to flip it on its head.
I’ll add, as clarification, I love female characters who blow things up. But not if that’s the only thing they can, or will, do to solve a problem (just like with male characters.) I don’t want to imply a female can’t behave just like a male character and still be female–she can exhibit the same traits and still be a woman, because a woman isn’t defined by being “feminine.” Action is great, as long as there’s character depth.
There are some GREAT female-centric comic books being put out by Marvel right now that do this perfectly – the best of which are The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and Hellcat.
Both characters fight the bad guys and hold their own, but beating the bad guy is NOT how they solve the problem. They actually talk to the “villain” and try to help solve the core problem at hand in other ways.
Great post!! But without sounding like the feminist “Debbie Downer”, I think the question goes deep than this.
As a lover of mystery and thrillers, I could ask, are the female protagonists solving the crimes themselves or using male supporting characters who are police or private detectives to rescue them? How often is a female villain using her body and sexuality to throw our male heroes off their game? How many works featuring female protagonists spend time (scenes, “real estate”) on clothing, hair, weight and whether or not they are married?
Last September I went to a Con and attended a panel on “Powerful Women Characters”. Most of the women on the panel, which happened to include Terry Farrell of Star Trek Deep Space Nine and other female bloggers and podcasters, cited Wonder Woman as their first strong female “role model”. I was quite surprised that they all spoke very positively about a fantasy woman who wore a costume that was essentially a trussed up bathing suit. It didn’t make any of them uncomfortable that even superhero females have to expose skin and this in a time when male superheros were covered from tip to toe.
I hope female characters will continue to evolve so that we represent real women, many of whom do not obsess on shoes or eating but still would never expose their thighs in public.
Thanks for your thoughts, I hope the dialog continues and deepens.
Hi Liz. (Or shall I call you Debbie?)
I absolutely agree with everything you said. The problem is multi-faceted and many layered. Writing more female protagonists won’t automatically fix all the issues inherent in the way female are portrayed in books and on screen. However, I think the first (baby) step is to notice that it’s happening. To understand that our perceptions about how much real estate female characters are given may not be objectively accurate.
Oh, and I share your feelings about Wonder Women. I’ve never really understood why so many women hold her up as an example of a strong female role-model. I get that she is, in many ways, but the fact that she’s always been dressed (by men) in sexually appealing clothes somewhat minimises that for me.
Thanks so much for commenting.
I think that one of the problems is the kind of stories which are told with male or female protagonists. For example, if I want to read a pirate story to my 5-year old who likes mainly pirate stories, I won’t find any with a female captain. And he doesn’t like princess stories, neither did I at his age. So this separation of roles according to gender in stories is another problem.
I absolutely agree, Leticia. That’s partly what I was saying above, to Brenda. As much as we’d like to diversify our protagonist’s genders, the books need to be available first.
Oh, and try “Grandma and the Pirates”. It’s a great little picture book that my sons love. The pirates are male, but the protagonists are Melissa and her Grandma, as they outsmart and escape from the pirates who capture them.
Or “Pirate Girl” by Cornelia Funk. Actually, there’s quite a few out there, just fewer than there are boy pirate stories.
The true confessions of charlotte Doyle, while not a pirate story, she gets caught up in the middle of a mutiny. It’s a great read.
Great post, Jo. The disparities between the roles of women and men in literature, and film are echoed in real life. We can count on our fingers the reality of working female film directors, for instance. And don’t get me started on how many films I’ve seen where the male lead is old enough to be the female co-leads father, and no one bats an eye. How many novels are there about women past 40? It seems to be a death knell age for women and a coming of age point for men in literature and film.
There was an interesting interview with Wynona Ryder on this point lately, about how, once an actress reaches missile-age, she magically transforms into a mom or becomes invisible. And yet she feels that TV is opening this up, with far more roles for women — not enough, and not enough room for women writers or directors either, but here and there change is being made.
It’s funny, actually, because when I was younger, that wasn’t something I ever noticed. Maybe because it wasn’t an issue that I’d ever heard about. Maybe because I’m not, and never have been, much of a film buff. Or maybe just because when I was 20, everyone over the age of 25 looked positively ancient.
These days, I can’t help but notice the dearth of women my own age in film. Let alone older women. Did you see the video Amy Schumer made with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tina Fey, and Patricia Arquette about the phenomenon? Funny, but so pointedly accurate.
As a reader and writer of primarily romantic women’s fiction and mystery, my shelves are full of women protags – although I write in multiple pov and like to think I write good male protags.
In our current society, movies are really (unfortunately) the storytelling standard and actresses bemoan the fact that there are so few good roles for women. Many or most people expect action on the screen and on the page and plot centered stories usually have masculine protagonists as opposed to character driven stories which are more often written by and read by women and feature more women characters. I have recently been disappointed by crime novels with female protagonists who in my opinion are really men in drag. They don’t think or feel (where feelings are even mentioned) like any woman I’ve ever met.
Maybe that’s what men prefer to read, which is okay. I am a firm believer that there are differences between the sexes! In the traditional publishing industry, however, men writers receive substantially more money and promotion than women writers resulting in there being more books by men in the forefront of marketing despite the fact that women buy and read so many more books. I wonder if we poled books by indie authors if we would find the same disparity?
It would absolutely be interesting to look at best-selling indie books, and see what the gender diversity looked like.
I’m curious about which books you’ve read where the female protagonists came across like men in drag. I’m curious to have a read of one, and see what the characterisation is like.
It’s interesting, because I’ve seen that comment made about Hermione and Katniss and even Buffy. And I absolutely wouldn’t have thought that any of those characters was “mannish” — other than that they were assertive, courageous, and driven. But perhaps those are the traits some people associate with being too male. I tend to write female characters, whether they’re protagonists or not, who swear/curse loudly and often, who aren’t shy about having one-night-stands, and who are vocally opinionated. And I’ve absolutely received feedback from some people along the lines of my female characters behaving too male. Which always amuses me, because my characters are often quite similar to me in personality, so I have to wonder if those same people think that I’m unwomanly, too.
Oh, it bugs me so much when people classify characters like Buffy and Hermione as “men in drag” or associate characters who curse or drink or fight or sleep around as “mannish.”
Buffy was a great female character. She was strong but vulnerable. She worried about her friends and family, had dumb crushes and heartbreak, made hard choices, wanted to fit in and sometimes didn’t really want the responsibility of saving the world. Being able to fight, alone, does not a boy make. I know several little boys who routinely get their asses kicked by a six-year-old purple belt and I know a certain fifteen-year-old black belt who thinks about rainbow ponytails and old metal music and anime and looks sweet and unassuming until you yell “hajime” and then she’s a force to be reckoned with.
One of my best friends curses like a proverbial sailor, spends most Saturday nights looking for a bedpost notch half her age, and obsesses over new clothes, new accessories, and hair products. She owns more than one tiara.
I wonder if it’s because we’ve been given so few female options for so long that anything outside of “demure, doting mother/half-naked buxom superhero sidekick” don’t feel “real” even though real women come in so many variations.
I taught in a detention center for years and for a lot of that time, I had female students all day. When I wrote the MC of my debut book, I imbued her with a lot of the resiliency and determination I’d seen in my students. I gave her their heart, but also their ferociousness. And I gave her a backstory that was both different from anything they’d told me, but based on enough real in the world to ground it. Kids who would dress androgynous in their gang life to avoid being a target. Kids who saw nothing wrong with rolling johns for cash because “he’s already breaking the law, too.”
Reminds me of this one girl who got endlessly ragged on for liking anime and manga because “that’s not for black kids, that’s for white people.” Nevermind, the notion that Japanese art is “for white people,” but some of these kids had such a narrow view of “blackness” that they actively held other kids away from their interests because it didn’t fit their definition. In their world, “white” meant you could like anything, but “black” meant you could only like “black things.”
I feel the same way about some of the accusations about female characters. It feels sometimes like male characters can be or do anything. Vampire? Sure. Construction worker? Yep. Actively seeking romance? Lone wanderer who finds trouble? Suit-wearing sociopath? Superhero? Dork? Kid who rides bikes in the woods? Kid who gets Fs and likes football? Lawyer? Baker? Sure, yep. no problem. Women? Here’s your narrow set of rules.
No. black girls can like the hell out of manga if they want and women can be Camaro Espinoza or Buffy or a Gilmore Girl.
I would like to hit the like button on this comment a thousand times.
Yes. This. I’m with Ms. Justice — I wish I could hit he like button more than once.
Great post, Jo. I’m somewhat unusual: a male writer who prefers to read female writers and stories with female characters. Perhaps it’s my chosen genre–family sagas. I find the leading practitioners are female authors, or at least my favorite ones. I suspect a big part of the reason for the disparity is that books and films have historically been dominated by males, from publishing to movie studies. Editors, producers, directors, screen writers–most have been male until recently. And this is reflected in movie genres and stories. I yearn for more stories told from a female perspective. I commend you for keeping this important issue on our radar screens. Kudos to you, Jo!
Thank you! You are, indeed, a rare and wonderful man amongst men. And I’m positive you’re right about the “cause” of the disparity in movies and literature. Societal change happens slowly, but it doesn’t happen at all if no one speaks up. Here’s to us for doing exactly that.
Interesting post, Jo. I try to mix up my reading–but I think I end up reading more with girl protagonists. Good that you actually studied the books on your shelves!
Thanks, Carol.
Jo, thank you for this! I too have a son and have consciously tried to choose books with female leads for us to read. It took some convincing for him to give Anne of Green Gables a chance, but he loved it and wanted to read more. We started a Wrinkle in Time but I think he’s just a little too young for it yet–the shadow in the fourth chapter terrified him. So we’ll wait on that. But I want him to grow up loving books with both male and female protagonists (like I did) and I hate the tendency for girls to read everything (especially once we’re in school and most of the protagonists in our English classes are male) and boys to read “books for boys.”
I’m writing novels with female protagonists, though I write short stories with male and female protagonists. I have a novel on submission now with 3 female leads, but the cast is about 50/50 male and female. Yet when my Baby Boomer father read it he said, “Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but this is written mostly for women, right?” I said yes, and then I was annoyed at myself for saying it. Because no, it isn’t. Yes it involves marriage, but it also involves race riots. Yes it mentions quilting and gardening, but it also mentions classic cars and war. It’s not a women’s book. It’s a book for humans.
I try to be an example of a strong and capable woman to my son (because that’s what I am and that’s the kind of person I hope he marries someday). I mow the lawn, I paint ceilings, I refinish floors, I chop wood, I play a mean guitar, I grill red meat. I also sew and wear dresses, cook amazing dinners, weed the garden, can homemade jam, sing soprano, paint pretty watercolors, and put on makeup. That same man who thought I was writing mainly for women is the one who taught me to be independent and not expect anyone else (including a husband) to do the dirty work for me. There were no boys’ roles or girls’ roles in our house growing up. There was stuff that needed to be done, and my sister and I did it all.
Here’s to all the girls out there who won’t be held back by stereotypes. And here’s to all the parents bringing up their children to value the contributions of both the sexes.
“Here’s to all the girls out there who won’t be held back by stereotypes. And here’s to all the parents bringing up their children to value the contributions of both the sexes.”
Hear, hear!
I love what you said about your book — that it’s a book for humans. As far as I’m concerned, all books are for humans. (Unless there’s a particularly literate dolphin out there.) There may be some men who don’t want to read a certain type of book because they don’t find it engaging or entertaining. But there may also be women who don’t want to read the same type of book. Stories aren’t gender-specific. Not at their heart. Men search for love, and suffer internal conflict, and wonder what other people think of them just as much as women do — even if it’s not culturally acceptable to talk about it.
Oh, and my response to someone who was amazed that I, as a women, mowed the lawn was to say: “Yes, I bought the model without a penis attachment.”
“Here’s to all the girls out there who won’t be held back by stereotypes. And here’s to all the parents bringing up their children to value the contributions of both the sexes.”
Hear, hear!
I love what you said about your book, too — that it’s for humans. All books are for humans, as far as I’m concerned. (Unless there’s a particularly literate dolphin out there that I don’t know about.) Sure, some men may not be interested in reading a particular style of book. But some women may not be interested in reading it, either. Men search for love, suffer internal conflict, wonder what others think of them, and have deep conversations with friends, just like women do. It’s just not culturally appropriate to talk about it.
I could have written most of this, and love every word of it.
I have a son, and raising him is part of what opened my eyes to so much of the disparity in everything from books to clothes to education. I have to fight the “this is for girls and this is for boys” mantra every day. And I hope I provide a balanced example of how women can be and do anything–and so can men. (Obviously, men are given wider latitude already, but there ARE a lot of limitations, many of which have to do with anything “feminine” being negative for a male.) I fix our plumbing, mow, fix the xbox, and know a lot of stuff (ie women have brains.)
And while I rarely wear make-up or heels…I don’t have to in order to be “feminine” or “womanly.” It’s not like there’s a switch on my vagina that’s only engaged on when I apply make-up or go shopping. :) So I hope he’s learning that none of those things defines a woman, just as being “tough” and liking sports don’t define men.
I hope. It’s difficult (and sometimes exhausting) to counter the images and words he sees and hears every minute of the day. But I’m glad at least some of us are trying.
Keeping strictly to the original middle-grade observation of this post and citing the Harry Potter phenomenon as the best of the genre, my observation is this: Not many preteen boys would have risked being teased by their group’s alpha to see a movie starring Hermione Potter who had a couple of male friends as sidekicks.
Twelve-year-old girls, on the other hand, are already intensely interested in boys and will be drawn to a cool male lead their age (basically a romantic lost prince) who has a female best friend. And… double emotional hit, they also get to especially identify with a strong female lead.
I doubt a twelve-year-old boy is going to happily roleplay second fiddle to a charismatic princess. Even Ron and Harry made sarcastic comments about Hermione being right all the time.
Authors hope to hook as many readers as possible, so it’s logical to write a happy medium showing equal deference to girls and boys as social norms dictate. Girls will have a crush on a heroic Harry Potter figure and identify with Hermione being the cleverest witch of her age. Boys will identify with a famous prince on a pedestal with a world in awe of his superpowers. Win win.
But let’s not forget that ‘Harry Potter’ is written by a masterful storyteller. Conscious savvy or subconscious choices aside, the dynamics of a middle-grade story parallels our society. And aren’t agents and editors shrewd business‘men’ (sorry) who continually monitor existing trends for the ‘same yet different’ surefire manuscript to claim the next golden publishing phenomena.
So, for now, the dynamics of appealing equally to girls and boys and adult kids who love a great story is already fixed. It favors the natural hierarchy of human society that genetics and civilization built.
But speaking of storylines, campfires never lie – the bottom line that matters most is a compelling story told exceptionally well.
Publishers are businesses. Their aim is not to facillitate cultural change any more than it is to assist in producing great art. Their aim is to make money. The majority of people who work in publishing would prefer to do at least two, if not three, of these things. However, a publishing company who eschews making money in favour of only publishing books that qualify as high art isn’t going to exist for long. So, yes, publishers look for trends, and make decisions about what to publish based on sales figures.
Which is why it’s important to make sure that we’re buying books that represent what we’d like to see published in the future. The only way (at least in traditional publishing circles) to move towards a world where there is equal gender representation is to purchase books about women and girls.
Of course, as you mentioned, there are greater sociological issues than simple the business model of a publishing company.
On a personal level, if my son said he didn’t want to see Brave because the boys at school would tease him, I would absolutely show him the movie. And talk to him about gender equality. And possibly suggest he gets himself some better friends. (I’m somewhat exaggerating here, because I’ve never yet had either of my sons tell me they’re not interested in a story about a girl because someone might tease them about it. I can’t actually imagine such a scenario.)
I’m not convinced that no teenage boy would watch Harry Potter if the protagonist was a girl. But then, I also don’t think Hermione SHOULD have been the protagonist. The story works perfectly just the way it is.
I suppose my take-away from what you wrote — and please correct me if I’ve interpreted it incorrectly — is that you’re saying that because the publishing industry reflects the world, and boys are more likely to relate to make characters and be unwilling to read/watch female characters, we, as writers, should continue writing primarily male protagonists. Because that’s what people want, and that’s what will sell.
If that’s the case, I have to say that I disagree. Writers and artists shape the world. If anyone can bring about a change whereby twelve-year-old boys are “allowed” by their peers to watch Brave and Mean Girls and The Hunger Games, it’s us.
The reason not to see Brave was it was an incredibly stupid, plotless story. Deeply disappointing. She fights with her mother all the time and then turns her into a bear, hijinks ensue…
It’s beyond sexist and patronizing to create a non-story and assume because the protagonist is female it will still sell. Gross.
Wow. I think we saw a different movie. Brave is my favorite Disney movie because it tells a terrific story about a young woman trying to break free of her mother’s expectations for her, while the mother tries to hang onto her “little girl.” They both come to value each other in the end. As a daughter and the mother of a girl, I grokked the mother-daughter conflict from both sides and thought it was altogether brilliant. (I also frankly loved how the men played no major role in the conflict or its resolution.)
Just goes to show how subjective experience influences our perceptions of art.
I’ve long been a member of Sisters in Crime, an organization that was formed to try to address the imbalance between male & female authors of crime fiction. However, I can’t say that it’s been a personal mission.
I’ve never considered myself a feminist, but prefer to think of myself as an individualist, and like to think I judge people (if I judge them at all) on their own merits without regard to gender. It’s undeniably a major characteristic, along with race, but there’s much more to a character than his/her gender.
The main protagonist in my own mystery series is male. I like realistic stories with realistic characters, and most homicide detectives (and truck drivers) are male. With multiple POV novels, I can have female POV characters and it’s interesting that some readers – even men – really like the strong female characters in my novels.
I’ll admit that to counter the bias male readers have against female writers, I use my initials rather than my first name. Many readers think my books are written by a man until (or unless) they see my photo at the back of the book.
Do I try to balance male and female characters in my reading and writing? I can’t say that I give it a lot of thought. The story and its believability are paramount in my choice of books, as well as in my writing.
Thanks for tackling this subject. It’s certainly thought provoking. (Enjoy your coffee!)
Thanks for the coffee and your comment. I’ve heard great things about Sisters in Crime, and think it’s great that there’s a group to support female authors in a traditionally male genre. Although it’s still quite a sad reflection on our society that you need to use initials rather than your name on your books so men will consider reading them. Social change takes time.
Awesome post. It really made me think about my own gender preferences in characters. In childhood I think I read mostly male characters, in my 20-30s mostly female, and since mostly male again. But I’m just guessing. And as you pointed out, what we think we are reading and what we really are reading may not track. I’ll be paying closer attention in the future.
Thanks for commenting, Regina. If there’s one thing I would hope to achieve through writing this article it’s exactly that: paying closer attention to the gender diversity of protagonists. Thank you.
As the mother of two daughters and then a son, our reading was various but yes, many books have focussed on male characters. Yet back in the day there was Nancy Drew and as Erin mentioned, Anne of Green Gables. I write women’s fiction and published a book of stories about motherhood. So I’m drawn to those topics. My background may be somewhat different from some of you as I was raised by a strong mother–my father died when I was three. Female strength has been consistent in my life, flows into my fiction and often the books I choose to read. Great post. It raises many questions and provokes fascinating responses.
Thanks, Beth. I’ve been somewhat overwhelmed by the great responses here. (As evidenced by the fact that I’m still catching up on replying to them all!)
Nancy Drew was a favourite of mine as a teenager, and I remember being disappointed when I moved on to adult mystery novels, only to find that I couldn’t find any female detectives that I enjoyed. There are more around these days, but I still feel like I need to search for them.
Thanks for commenting.
Thank you, Jo, for the great topic and the discussion which it’s, er, engendered.
I haven’t checked the books on my shelves; they’re all topsy-turvy at the moment anyhow, with maybe half of them in boxes and the rest scrambled all over — novels mixed amongst travel essays, etc. Checking my Kindle purchases would be easier if I had some way to download the list, sort and group it… and could separate out “my” books from The Missus’s. But I don’t need specific numbers: I know the imbalance is there.
One caveat, though: I bet if we could take those separate male-or-female-protagonist piles and divide them up further, into chronological bands (when written or when read)… well, I bet the tale would be at least marginally less dire.
(1) In the first place, it stands to reason that stories written in more benighted ages would reflect the prejudices of those ages. (Thinking of the Dead White Male “canon” here, especially.) Where’s the cutoff year? Who knows? But I’d be really, really surprised if the world of writers and publishers hasn’t gotten a lot smarter about the problem recently than they ever were in the past.
(2) Also important: readers (including those of us here, those making reading choices for others as well as for ourselves) are a lot smarter about it now than they ever were earlier. We’re buying and recommending more books about women because we know it’s a problem. (Fringe benefit, of course, that we’re also finding out how much richer such books are. A good example: Lisa Brackmann’s Ellie McEnroe books, which I’d stack up against any of a dozen male-focused series in the same genre.)
So — again, granted the lack of hard numbers — I bet we’d find that things had become a heck of a lot closer to balance nowadays.
Which isn’t to suggest that they are balanced, by a long shot, only to point out that world generally tends to get better and not worse, in this respect as in many/most others.
Regarding my own writing, I’ve always tried to remember Rita Mae Brown’s advice, in her book about writing called Starting from Scratch:
The decision to make a given character (protagonist or not) male or female seems to me almost completely arbitrary. (Exceptions abound, of course: unless you’re writing SF/F, for instance, creating a male character who gives birth would strike most of us as, um, ill-advised; and if a protagonist must be bearded, again, stretching for a “I’ll make this person a woman” storyline will be tough to justify in the real world.)
Making a computer-programmer character a guy just because most programmers are indeed male is a dumb choice, I think. Making the character female just because we do indeed need more female characters, also dumb. As somebody above (Marta?) says about Rowling/Potter, she just knew the character was a boy, and I think that’s the right sort of creative choice to make…
…as long as we’re self-aware enough to always question our decisions in these matters. I think I’d rather err on the side of switching the imbalance in the other direction.
Wise words, John.
Yes, I agree that things are getting more balanced — I’m sure Currer Bell would agree. But when you look at the best-sellers list in most genres (not those considered “girly” and therefore unread by the majority of men), the balance still skews dramatically towards the male protagonist (and, generally, male writer). As are all literary prize lists.
I know there are plenty of people out there — both male and female — whose reaction to that is an immediate and visceral: “Well, those are clearly the best books. Why should a woman get the award just because she’s a woman, if her book isn’t as good.” And I get that response, I really do. I had a similar response years and years ago when I first hard rumblings in the news about having “quotas” of women in government and board rooms. I reacted strongly in the negative, asserting that giving women positions out of pity, rather than the strength of their application, was a step backwards. And unfair on the men who “rightly” deserved the position.
It’s only with age and experience that I’m come to realise that “getting there on your own merits” is only possible in a world without subconscious, systematic sexism. I posted a link above about a study that was done with STEM managers, and their reaction to male and female applicants with the exact same resume. (Spoiler: The male was perceived as more competent, even though their resumes were word-for-word the same other than the names.) And it would be foolish to assume that the publishing industry is any different to the rest of the world.
So, yes. I think things are a bazillion times better (* Not a verified figure) than they were a hundred years ago. Or even fifty years ago. Probably even than ten years ago. But there’s still a long way to go, and the accepted truism that boys will only read books about boys while girls will read books about anyone isn’t helpful.
I actually disagree with Rita Mae Brown in part. In that I think she’s right overall, but that many female writers actually start out with dice loaded towards male protagonists. Because (a) that’s what they grow up reading, so it feels more comfortable; and (b) because we’re told over and over again that male protagonists sell better.
I definitely do agree with you, though, that making a character female as a statement rather than an artistic choice is also dumb. Although those two motives can happily coexist, especially with secondary characters. After all, why does the doctor operating on our protagonist’s gun shot wound have to be male?
Thanks so much for your comment.
Ursula LeGuin blazed the trail for a lot of women scifi/fantasy writers, becoming the first woman to win the Hugo, and she broke gender taboos when she wrote Left Hand of Darkness (the Hugo winner), and even she used male protagonists almost exclusively in her early work. I’ve read that her publisher didn’t want books featuring female leads early on (and she also used to hide ber gender behind her initials). We’ve come a long way since she started publishing in the mid 60s, but we have a very long way to go.
Ursula LeGuin is my hero, and Left Hand of Darkness is one of my all-time favourite books.
You’re so right. We’ve come a long, long way, but we’re not there yet. Thank goodness for people like Ms LeGuin blazing the trail.
She’s my idol too!
Very thought provoking subject. I’d always considered myself a “progressive” thinking person, but this mirror shows differently. I don’t have too many novels in my bookshelves anymore, but the ones I do have are overwhelmingly male, but most have strong female characters, too. Then I went over my own stories, and again, I found predominantly male characters, with strong female secondary characters. I think it’s worth a trip to the bookstore (brick and mortar, or electronic) to see if YA lit stacks up the same way.
It’s enlightening, isn’t it? Funny how our perceptions play tricks on us. Best of luck with the shopping trip!
My first grapic comic/ chapter novel “Cacy and Kiara and the Curse of the Ki’i “, I use two female protagonists, female supporting Hawaiian goddesses, and the antagonist is a also a female. It was a surprise to readers and reviewers at the time, but they liked the difference from the norm.
Awesome, Roy. It’s telling that having female protagonists is “different from the norm”, isn’t it? Keep up the great work!
Hi, Jo:
Nothing is more revealing — or scary — than to have one’s unconscious biases exposed. Your piece points out how, even when trying to be even-handed, the gravitational pull toward male-centric can be overwhelming.
However, at the recent Book Passage Mystery Writers’ Conference, the point was made over and over that publishers are looking for female protagonists. And I think the message sank in.
My own agent asked me if I couldn’t change the protagonist in my current WIP from a man to a woman. I said sure, and I’m really enjoying the process of creating/getting to know Lisa Balamaro, Esq.
That said, I think the dialogue between Vaughn and Susan above on “strong” or “kick-ass” women characters is really on-point. Even with a swarm of new female protagonists, a great many seem a bit too much like feminized boys. I’ve really tried to steer away from that, making my character’s strength her honesty, her determination, her big fat lonely heart, and her dedication to the law–without which, society degenerates into a war of all against all, and guess who winds up the winners when those are the terms of engagement?
Great post, great discussion. Thanks.
That’s a great story about the Book Passage Mystery Writers’ Conference. I love that publishers are actively looking for more female protagonists.
You’re so right about the trend in kick-ass female protagonists, though. (As are Vaughn and Susan.) Although I think that it’s not so much that they’re feminised boys, as that the kick-ass female has become the “only” option. Or, rather, there’s the girly-girl or the kick-ass girl. Whereas male protagonists can be strong or weak, courageous or cowardly, anti-heroes or Indiana Jones. Male protagonists don’t get panned for being alcoholic or sex-crazed or emotional or lusting after pre-pubescent girls. They get labelled as “disturbing” or “flawed”, but not as inauthentic.
Female protagonists, though, are expected to fit a very narrow version of femininity. Girly, but not too girly. Kick-ass, but not too kick-ass. Smart, but not too smart. Tough, but not emotionless. Sexy, but not sexual. And when they step outside that box, they’re classed as not being real women.
Again, it’s getting better. And maybe the kick-ass female protagonist trend is a necessary hiccup on the path to true acceptance of a whole range of female expressions. But it’s still frustrating.
Good luck with your current WIP. Can’t wait to hear more about Lisa Balmoral, Esq.
Regarding the 2 “choices” for female characters, my husband and I were at the movie theater this week and saw a huge display for Suicide Squad. I noted that the two female characters were styled in the only two choices for females in superhero movies (considering that they are already the kick-butt type): buxom/sexy/slutty and moody/emo/smart. He was going to disagree, then he thought for a while and said nothing. :)
The thing is, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with those female character types. There’s just something wrong when those are the ONLY female character types.
Excellent post Jo! Like I actually bought you a cup of coffee and my ass is so cheap … for me that four bucks actually feels like 20 to me. And not one of them 20’s I found in a parking lot. Seriously Jo, from one writer to another, thank you.
I can say my mother read us a pretty good mix and if you consider the Wizard of Oz series spanning about 14 books and Little House on the Prairie, I think we did read more books amount wise with a female protagonist … although looking at a variety of stories with different series, then it would be male.
I personally only care about what I would consider is a good story. To date my favorite protagonists happen to be one male and one female: Lyra from Golden Compass and of course, Harry Potter.
There are HUGE problems in novels and film with racism and sexism. Look at the new Ghostbusters. Patty from the MTA versus three white girls who are the scientists … hmmm. Perhaps I am wrong and would love to discuss this come conference time, but I personally found that movie very problematic when it came to characters as caricatures. Here was a great opportunity and I was so excited to see the movie and loved the idea of turning the tables to female protagonists for the reboot, but it was so shallow, and hearing dialogue like: “We’re scientists … and this is … Patty” was kind of heartbreaking. To contrast this with ‘Earth to Echo’ (although I did not like the writing, and not claiming it goes any deeper into the characters) the characters were all on the same ‘level’ and on the one pass of watching that movie, I didn’t notice any differences that spoke to me as being racist. I’m not a person of color and could be totally wrong about this, but it just irks me to no end to see in Ghostbusters, a woman of African descent work at the MTA who was overweight, funny, angry and tough … the way the character played out through the movie felt like a caricature to me. Again if I’m wrong or misunderstood something, I apologize as this is a very sensitive issue, but as writers, we really do need to explore these things because of the protagonists and characters we create. As a reader, I like to mix up my protagonists, and as a writer I do the same. Of course then we have the argument of authenticity. Can, as a gay male, I write an authentic female protagonist? Or a straight male for that matter? But that’s for a different day.
“Can, as a gay male, I write an authentic female protagonist? Or a straight male for that matter?”
Of course you can. Just like you can write a space explorer, or a 17th century lord, or a vampire, or a lumberjack, or a political activist, or a coward, or pig slated to be Christmas dinner, but helpfully saved by a literate spider.
If you couldn’t step outside your own life experiences, the only thing you’d be able to write is memoir — and, even then, not very well. Every time you write a character — every character — you’re extending your empathy out to imagine what it would be like to be that person, at that time, experiencing those things. Women are people. So are straight males. (Pigs, not so much. Although apparently anthropomorphised male pigs are easier for some people to relate to than female women. Go figure.)
Sexuality and gender are a facet of our personalities, but they’re not the entirety of it.
As for your comment about racism in the new Ghostbusters movie…. Yeah, I’m not touching that conversation with a ten foot pole right now. I’m not a POC, I haven’t seen the film, and I don’t feel at all qualified to make a comment either way.
I’m not a POC, but I loved Patty. I get the criticism and totally understand it, but I also thought in a lot of ways she was a step up from the non-scientist POC in the original. I also identified most with her because I have a less-than-prestigious job, but if creepy stuff happened, I’d be all over wanting to know more.
She’s not perfect as a character — long way from — but again, compared to Winston… (Disclaimer, I saw the original again a week after the new one.) Winston doesn’t believe in any of the hooey, applies as a job and is relegated to “other” status throughout. The fact that he’s just looking for a job means his involvement requires less agency than Patty, who seeks the rest of the weirdos out on purpose and actively provides historical information that aides in their “investigation.”
Again, not perfect, but a step up from Winston.
The Winston character was originally conceived for Eddie Murphy. When Eddie declined the part, the character was almost written out of the film. That’s why Winston in Ghostbusters 1 is what he is. The character stayed at the last minute.
Re: Ghostbusters, I haven’t seen it yet, but the preview made me think the exact same thing. You wonder, did NO ONE at the studio give that a second thought? It’s such an obvious stereotype!
Such an interesting article, thank you! The roles secondary female characters are given in stories are often weak and uninspiring, like the damsel in distress scenario. We need to see more female protags, yes, but I’d like to see stronger secondary female characters as well.
Yes to both of those things. I think they draw on each other. If people make it a habit to write (good) secondary female characters, it makes it easier to accept female protagonists. And the more female protagonists there are, the more commonplace it becomes to write strong secondary female characters and bit-parts.
Thanks for your comment!
One of many reasons I love writing romance. Because the female protagonist’s needs and desires will always be as central as the male’s.
And ditto to comments above about what constitutes a “strong” woman. Yes, some strong women are kickass, badass, etc., etc. Others are gentle. Traditionally female characteristics like empathy and compassion are every bit as “strong” as traditionally male characteristics. The emotional strength it takes to understand, reach out, forgive–that’s enormous.
Yes- thank you. I wanted to add this as well and read your comment. Empathy and compassion require lots of strength and courage. I spent too long listening to the story that these traits meant I was “too sensitive” or “girly”. Great addition to the conversation.
The “too sensitive” comments really do my head in. It takes courage to face the world with an open heart.
Romance is one of the exceptions to the female/male ratio, which I love. Unfortunately, the downside to that balance is that romance is seen as a purely female reading domain. As though no man ever has quietly longed to meet the perfect woman and fall in love.
My personal belief — based on absolutely no empirical evidence — is that without the gender expectations in our society, the romance gender would be enjoyed by men and women equally. (That is to say, there would be people of both genders who were drawn to it, and people of both genders who weren’t.) After all, movies like Singin’ in the Rain are romances. And they weren’t classified as “movies for women”.
I commented above on the types of women “allowed” in books and movies, so won’t repeat myself here. But I agree completely with what you said.
I used to love romance novels, and have gotten back into them as dual genre. Lots of good Sci fi romance out there these days.
I know a LOT of guys that secretly read romance. They are often afraid to admit it.
How about…STOP! I was raised reading the classics–books that many would say are heavily man centered and anti-women. I also read Bronte and Austen. I watched the movies from different eras of different genres. I raised to believe in traditional roles in marriage. I was raised that (despite my father divorcing my mom and cheating) men aren’t bad.
I was also raised to be strong–very strong. Independent. Well spoken and outspoken. I put myself through college and worked in New York. I met my now husband and he shares my beliefs in traditional marriage. I stopped working. I take care of our home and of him.
I see other men who have been raised in these “gender equality” homes and guess what–they are weak and pathetic husbands. They make poor decisions and lack leadership. I also see women from these families. They are so “pro-woman” that they alienate future spouses (not that it is the ultimate goal) with their spewing. They wake up at 35, alone with a cat. They are bitter and unhappy.
Raise men to be MEN. To love and respect women. Stop trying to change nature
Thanks for your comment, Carol. It’s great to hear that you grew up reading a mix of protagonists and authors — I have no doubt you’ve continued doing that in your later life.
It’s also refreshing to hear such a modern feminist success story. If there’s one thing that annoys me, it’s when people equate feminism with thinking that men are bad. As we all know, feminism is simply a movement focused on ensuring women have equal rights to respect, decision-making, and income as men do. Hearing that you were raised to be independent and outspoken, had (and took) the opportunity to attend college, chose to work in whatever field it was you chose, and then had the option of choosing to stay home and look after your home (and husband) one you were married is fantastic. I really couldn’t ask for a more perfect example of the effect feminism has had on our society.
Kudos to you for taking advantage of the equal right to choose your own path, and thank you so much for sharing your journey.
“Do you consciously try to find a balance between male and female protagonists in the books you read and write?”
No, for me it’s the story and the telling that counts.
Thanks, David. I absolutely agree. The story and storytelling are obviously the most important thing overall. Unfortunately, great, well-written stories with female protagonists often don’t get the same kind of promotion or recognition as great, well-written stories with male protagonists, which makes them harder to find. Here’s hoping that changes in the future!
P.S. I keep thinking about this. Honestly, it is a subject I’ve thought about for years and years. This touches on a nerve. That’s for sure. Generally, every man I’ve ever met says something along the lines of, “I’m not sexist.” Fair enough. I know a lot of great men. And yet, the world is still a very sexist place. To say I find this frustrating is an understatement.
One of my favorite novels ever is Watershed Down. I’ve met other people who love it too. And people seem to have little trouble relating to rabbits. As a teen, I really related to Fiver. Fiver was a boy rabbit, and yet, I felt like Fiver. I know some people who have an easy time relating to a rabbit, but can’t relate to a female character. It’s frustrating, and I don’t know the answer.
Yes! Exactly. I made a similar comment above about Charlotte’s Web. I think sometimes people have internalised the old “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” adage too literally.
I write primarily fantasy novels that have been pretty well-reviewed. As a writer, I like supporting other writers, and so I started a cooperative with other writers of both sexes. However, most of the other fantasy writers were male. Imagine my surprise when the male members joined together for a promotional opportunity that didn’t include me.
I think one of the issues here is that women are held to a different standard. Some authors are automatically relegated to ‘romance’ because they’re female.
Okay, that’s just plain disrespectful and rude. It very much mirrors what we’ve seen with sci-fi and fantasy authors on panels, though.
I’m very supportive of romance writers — they’re some of the hardest working writers I know. But it also annoys me when all female authors are classed as “romance” for reason of gender, rather than genre.
Sounds like you’re better off without that particular cooperative — or, at least, without those members!
I’m a 15 year old female. I don’t care about the gender of the protagonist or even writer of any book I read. I dont pay attention to the gender of the character when I purchase the book either.
So, out of curiosity I sorted through the 107 fiction books I own. Before doing so, I thought back to the books I own and how evenly the two would be. My guess was a decently even cut, with female leads leading. I was right.
55 books with a female protagonist (51.4%)
40 books with a male protagonist (37.3%)
12 books with one male and one female or an ensemble of a pretty much even ratio of male and female (11.2%)
That’s a fantastic breakdown, Carter. Thanks so much for dropping in and sharing.
I write fantasy novels (primarily) featuring female protagonists that have been pretty well-reviewed. As a writer, I like supporting other writers, and so I started a cooperative with other writers. However, most of the other fantasy writers in the co-op were male. Imagine my surprise when the male members joined together for a promotional opportunity that didn’t include me.
I think one of the issues here is that women are held to a different standard. A male writer can include romance, sex, incest and rape but female writers are automatically relegated to ‘romance’ because they’re female if they do it
I think your comment came through twice, Valerie. I replied above, but just wanted to add that I really appreciate what you have to say about male writers being able to include romantic subplots without being classes as romance writers.
I’ve been thinking about this very subject lately, especially in regards to Stranger Things, which I love. Then I thought of favorite novels/stories that are comparable to Stranger Things- The Body, Summer of Night, The Goonies. All these wonderful groups of young friends joining together going on great adventures and defeating evil. All of them are male-centric. I would love similar stories that are centered around girls/women who are great friends and uncover evil/conspiracy/coming of age. Sure there’s The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. But for each of these there are twenty stories about bands of boys.
I think of this when my teen daughters and I have discussions about this common idea that many girls have that they would rather run with the boys because boys are “less dramatic” and competitive than girls. I had and have a wonderful group of female friends and we explored ideas and our small towns together. Yet, I remember going through a distinct stage in which I preferred to run with the boys and wanted to be the “cool” girl. You know, easy-going, fun, plays poker, drinks beer. It took a few years for me to realize I have women friends who are and enjoy those very things.
It’s the stories we are told by our culture, our media. Then when I embrace other things I love- red lipstick, a good cry over a romance- I feel that somehow I’m betraying all of women hood. That they’ll look at me and think I’m either being a silly female, or I’m judging them. Which is silly. Because I can love red lipstick and poker, I can be assertive and still enjoy flirting with my husband.
This subject runs deep and there are so many angles.
It all goes back to story. The ones we are told and the ones we tell ourselves. That’s how I know we (the collective we) are in a good place to explore these things, to shake up the narrative.
Great post. Great conversation.
“It all goes back to story. The ones we are told and the ones we tell ourselves.”
That is so true. There’s ample evidence to show that our personal identities are created from stories, and that identity includes gender as much as our favourite colour, our favourite band, and whether or not we like wearing red lipstick.
But, of course, we can only tell ourselves stories that we’ve been exposed to. Which is why so many of our choices — decisions we think are personal and individual — are actually a reflection of the culture we’ve been raised in, and how we concede to, or rebel against, that culture.
Great reflections, Tonia. Thanks so much for sharing them. (As a side note, I really need to check out Stranger Things!)
In the novels and stories I read, I am more attractive to diversity. It adds multiple dimensions to the tale, although it is more difficult for the author.
I get that there are more male protagonists. But, I think the issue should be a good story rather than forcing the actors to be male or female.
I agree that the quality of the story is the most important thing. I would never advocate gender-swapping a character for the sole reason of balancing out gender representation. But I do advocate being aware of the gender choices we make, and why we make them.
One of the issues is that great stories with male protagonists are marketing, talked about, and promoted significantly more than great stories with female protagonists. And that leaves us, as a society, feeling like all the best stories have male protagonists, and that’s just how it is.
But, really, the most important point I wanted t make was that regardless of all that, it’s the inaccuracy of our perceptions that is the most immediate problem. After all, if we don’t notice that there’s a disparity, it’s never going to change.
Oh, Gosh. As a woman, I do identify better with female protags. I usually write about them, and often read about them. But a strong male protagonist will grab my attention. For example, Michael Ridpath comes to mind. The narrator in Where the Shadows Lie was amazing. Another one is Gile Blunt’s 40 Words for Sorrow. So, yes, I can say that the main attraction for me is a good story, rather than whether the protagonist is male or female. But that said, I am more intrigued initially by the female protagonists. The men have to work harder for it! ;-) Thanks for a great, thought-provoking read!
Thanks so much for your comment, Sati. Just to be clear, I’m in no way suggesting that we throw all the great male protagonists out with the bathwater! There are a great many male protagonists I just adore, and I’m positive I’ll come across more in the future. Having primarily female protagonists over a long period of time would just leave us in the same position, albeit reversed. It’s all about balance.
I think this also speaks on how we as female characters demand attention. Even though we only take up 20-30% of the time and concentration, we stick out. I think that’s at least one win.
Thanks for commenting, Shawna. I’m going to have to think about your comment a bit. My initial reaction is that far too often, the only reason female characters stand out is because they’re written as sexy love interests. But I’ll put some more thought into it. Perhaps I’m just not thinking about the right books.
Great article. Thank you. Was discussing sexism in the media/books just the other day with the men in my life, something which unfortunately always gets a little heated. Will definitely be sharing this on my social media.
Thanks so much for commenting and sharing, Suzanne.
My fiction reading is mostly genre: romance and mysteries. As a college senior, I realized that my favorite mystery authors were all women. The protagonists aren’t always female (Lord Peter Wimsey, Gregor Demarkian, Cormoran Strike), but generally, I prefer reading a woman’s prose. My genre fiction bookshelf includes Dick Francis and G.K. Chesterton, but the rest is all women.
As a middle-school student obsessed with biographies, I preferred the ones of “girls. Like me” and the librarians indulged me. I majored in history, minored in women’s studies. Hmm. Connection there?
Yeah, I think I can see a connection there. :) Thanks so much for commenting, Megan.
I think it comes down to just the way our brains are wired, and the assumption that males and females are the same with the same preferences and proclivities. It just isn’t so. We are the descendents of our ancestors who had to figure out how to survive in nature and protect themselves from other groups of people. Only recently has society been in a secure enough position to be able to give women some of the opportunities that have historically been reserved for men. Maybe our brains just haven’t caught up yet. Evolutionary psychology is an interesting study that has theories for all this. It’s just the way we are– we are fighting against instinct. And JK Rowling made her protagonist male, because writers know that little boys won’t read books with female protagonists, but little girls will read books with male protagonists and still like them. It is what it is.
Hi Amber. I have to disagree about J.K. Rowling. She’s said time and time again that she “saw” Harry, and knew she had to tell his story. She made her protagonist male because that’s how she envisioned the story, not for any strategic reason. (There are plenty of interviews with her that you can look up if you’re interested in hearing her talk about it.)
On the other hand, it was a strategic move to publish using her initials rather than her name. But that was suggested by her publisher, rather than by her. There is definitely the “truism” out there that boys will only read about boys, and girls will read about anyone. Unfortunately, there’s no actual empirical evidence to back that up — just a lot of tradition. Small children rarely choose their own books, they’re given books by adults. And those adults are the ones making sure to give boys books about boys.
I’m interested in reading more about evolutionary psychology, too. They must subscribe to a biological perspective on gender, which has been debunked roundly by social psychologists and sociologists. I’ll have to do some more reading to see what evidence evolutionary psychologists have to back up the idea that gender is biological rather than sociological.
Right on. Will pass this on to my English teacher pals and will be more careful in my classroom to talk about and DO something to ensure fair balance.
Thanks for commenting, Sue.
What I believe is irrelevant. The need for more female speaking roles is proven in your post above. As a red blooded American Male, I’m okay with the current state of affairs.
Until such time as women feel comfortable asking a guy out, and paying 100% for the date, we’re going to have the problem.
I didn’t see the current Ghostbusters™ for any other reason than I didn’t think the trailers were funny, and I was paying respect to the original. I guess that’s two reasons….
I’m actually not quite sure what point you’re making here, Matches Malone. But, assuming that what you mean is that as a man, you’re happy for the status quo to be maintained until women are happy to ask men out on dates, here’s my response:
I HAVE asked men out on dates — and offered to pay — and every single time, I’ve been turned down and mocked for being too aggressive, not womanly enough, and/or being itimidating. So I think there’s quite a bit of other work to be done sociologically before we reach that level of equality — and the onus doesn’t rest solely on women.
As for being happy for things to stay the same because you’re a red-blooded American male… Am I to assume that you’re happy for your daughter (current or future) to grow up in a world where her voice will be less valued than that of her peers, and where she’s perceived as “talking to much” if she contributes to more than 30% of the conversation?
For years, I read primarily female protagonists. But, having two sons, I Balance that out bc I love to imagine my boys as powerful honorable leads in the fantastical stories I read. As a writer, it’s female all the way. Perhaps someday that will evolve, too.
It’s all about balance, whichever way you tip the scales. I’d be curious to hear what your sons’ bookshelves look like in terms of male vs female protagonists.
Thanks for commenting.
As an SFF author who fills her books with female protags, yes, this is a major problem. The perception that women authors only write romance, that books staring women must be trivial and boring, that men address important issues in the books they write and women just don’t–all of that is out in the world.
I worked as a bookseller for four years. Men looked me in the eye and said they never bought books written by women. Other men told me that women don’t write SF, even as I held out a book written by a woman.
I’ve written long essays about this, and I don’t want to rehash it all again here, but I will say this. These perceptions and preferences have nothing to do with the way men or women are “hardwired.” They have everything to do with conditioning and marketing, what books are pushed, and what books are included in Year’s Best lists and award lists.
If the only books you ever see on bookstore shelves and special displays, YB lists, and nominated for awards are written by men and star male protagonists, what books will the vast majority of readers buy?
Overcoming that conditioning is hard. It takes effort. Recognizing the problem is harder still.
Thanks so much for your comment, Jaime. I think one of the most difficult genres for women to be taken seriously in is sci-fi, especially hard sci-fi. There’s absolutely a perception that women don’t understand such “difficult” genres. I have a great deal of respect for all those female authors who’ve fought their way through the gender bias.
I worked as a bookseller as well, many years ago, and faced the same thing from male readers. As though, just because a book was written by a woman, it automatically changes from a hard sci-fi novel into a romance set in space.
There’s some major change that needs to take place on an institutional level, but realising that there’s a problem is the first step.
Thought you might find this interesting
I am curious. What did your son say after you pointed out that his perception was wrong?
Thanks for asking, Mantelli. Actually, I didn’t point out that his perception was wrong — he did.
We went and sorted out his books together, and stacked them in piles. We had a few debates about whether a book qualified as male or female or other (such as Charlotte’s Web), but eventually finished. He took a look at the piles and said, “Oh. I guess we mostly read about boys. Okay. When can we read the next book in the Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland series? Can I have an apple?”
Then he ran off to eat an apple while I put the books away. Because that’s kids for you.
This was a great post and the comments resonate with my own experience. I have a new release coming out in September with a female protagonist. It’s a scifi/fantasy blend with lots of bloodshed and battles (so, adventure and stuff guys usually like) but the protagonist is a woman, and I think men may be less likely to pick it up for that reason. I was thrilled last week to see the first review by a male reviewer appear on Goodreads; all the other reviews and all the Goodreaders who have added the book to their to-read lists have been women.
I agree that the only way to change hearts and minds of men, and make them more willing to read books in which women hold center stage, is for both men and women to produce more top-quality novels with female protagonists. We also need more novels where women are leaders, not just support for a male leader. I’m confident this will happen. Eventually, the protests will wane. Eventually, no one will blink an eye at the gender of the protagonist.
Congrats on your book release. And that’s great that you’ve had a review from a male reviewer. We need more of it. Here’s to many more books with female leaders!
It’s one of the reason girls and women are the main characters in all but two of my books.
When you pointed these numbers out to your son, did you ask him why he thought the reading list was “always” about girls? His analysis would be much more enlightening that our speculation.
He didn’t really know. I would imagine that it was because the last two books we’d read had female protagonists, and kids tend to live in the “now” and generalise from there. But when he realised that most of his books were about boys, he wasn’t shocked or defensive. He just asked when we were reading the next in the Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairlyand series.
And the female protagonist must be fierce and kind, gifted in some way, and remarkably intelligent. We would never tolerate a Holden Caulfield or a Humbert Humbert or even the dufus from Ricci’s Origin of Species, or the loser of A Good Night to go to China… I could go on…
And then, when there are female anti-heros such as Cersei Lannister or Madame Bovary, only men are permitted to write them. (Emily Bronte’s Cathy being an exception that makes this rule.)
I think men have much more freedom to write flawed female leads, because as noted above, everyone will be willing to read a book written by a man.
Even then, though, the flawed female characters aren’t generally celebrated in the same way as flawed male characters.
Exactly so. I think some of that is the desire to put women on a pedestal, and some of it is simply a non-acceptance of any woman who steps outside the accepted gender roles.
Thanks so much for posting this — an intriguing societal challenge. And as to the books on our shelf, despite my wife’s & my efforts to diversify, we represent our culture at 70/30% male/female. As a middle school teacher, I have huge optimism regarding the likelihood that this will improve over time. Modern kids are eating up books like Levithan’s Every Day, Plum-Ucci’s What Happened to Lani Garver, & Brezenoff’s Brooklyn, Burning, books in which the protagonists’ genders are up-for-grabs.
Thanks so much for your perspective, CS. As a middle school teacher, you’re in a unique position to see how children’s reading habits are changing, and also to influence future generations of readers. I’m a big fan of the trend for stories with genderless protagonists.
Isn’t it interesting to see that 70/30 breakdown, even when making a conscious effort to diversify?
I completed a research project using content analysis methodology to document and compare the number of female to male characters on popular television shows in 1989. Not one bit of progress have we made in media. And if you think those statistics are bad, review the names on the organization chart at any workplace of your choosing. Or all of them.
Thanks so much for your comment, Jan. It’s disappointing to know that there’s not been any progress since 1989. I’m surprised, actually. (Although I shouldn’t be.)
Thank you for this marvelous article. This is gold!
As to the question about my own writing, I write female protagonists and supporting characters in every story. However, I was shocked when a month or so ago I made a spreadsheet of the character appearances per chapter of my current work-in-progress. I was surprised that one of the male supporting characters had crept into nearly every scene after his introduction. I haven’t counted lines by gender. I’m still revising it.
Thanks again for the insights, examples, and numbers!
Thanks for commenting, Brad. Kudos to you for noticing your male supporting character creeping into the foreground. It’ll be interesting to see what you do with that information.
Thank you for reading!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for a great read.
I absolutely agree. Even when some films are ‘about’ girls, they’re not. Like The Little Mermaid – who completely lost her voice!
Anyway, I’m cramming my books with loads of female protagonists, girls and women (have you noticed the missing mums in young fiction?) I feel like I’m doing my bit to correct the imbalance.
Also, I paypalled a cup of coffee for you, because coffee is important!
Thanks so much for the coffee, Ebony. Much appreciated.
Your Little Mermaid example is spot-on. The symbolism of a female lead literally losing her voice in the process of actively pursuing her goal is fitting in so many ways.
Good on you for making sure you include plenty of female protagonists. And, YES, I have noticed the absence of mothers. Thanks so much for doing your bit to create an equilibrium.
Hi Jo – thanks for an interesting article about unconscious societal bias. Fascinating and a bit disheartening at the same time.
There does seem to be a strong perception that books with female protagonists written by female authors are trivial or less serious than those with male protagonists written by men – despite classics like Pride and Prejudice, or Middlemarch or Frankenstein. I was surprised to see The Hunger Games, for instance, dismissed by many men as ‘chic lit’ (and even that ‘chic lit’ is a dismissive term speaks volumes)!
Back to your experiment. As doing a survey of all my books would take too long, I did do a quick one on fiction I’ve read this year (total 40 books) & came up with the following split 35% for ensemble, 35% for female protagonists & 30% for male. So fairly evenly split.
In my own writing – for my novels I have generally 2-4 protagonists 50:50 male to female – (the females are not all kick-ass but still, I think, strong women). in my short stories – most have a female protagonist though my recent release Heart of the Mountain has two male & one female.
When I originally started making up my stories as a young girl, my ‘protagonist’ was male – it was really when I started writing my first novel (at 19) that I had a female protagonist paired with a male one. I’ve pondered since on why a male persona felt natural (despite being happy to be a woman). Lucy was always my favourite in the Narnia series – and a lot of my childhood books did have female protagonists (Anne of Green Gables, What Katey Did, Tanglewood Secrets) as well as male (Bigglesworth, Lone Ranger, Last of Mohicans) and mixed (Famous Five, Narnia). I think part of the issue is that while girls and women are used to and can appreciate a male protagonist, many men feel uncomfortable with a female lead.
As an aside, in a critique group I’m in, I’d mentioned to one of the members that I’d had medical training. Later, in the group, he told everyone ‘Jeanette’s a nurse’. That hasn’t happened to me for a long time – the instant assumption that as a woman I must be a nurse not a doctor despite the fact that there are as many women doctors as men these days. (btw I’m moved on from medicine to other things after 11 years in hospitals and general practice, so a bit rusty now.)
Oh, that assumption that a woman with “medical training” must be a nurse is terrible. I mean, I know it happens. I’ve even caught myself jumping to conclusions like that at times — at which point I take myself outside and give myself a good talking to. Subconscious gender bias is something that can be hard to overcome.
I think you’re right about why girls and women often tend to feel that male protagonists are “easier” or “more comfortable”. We’ve been exposed to them our whole lives, with the expectation that we’ll be able to relate. It comes back to the idea that ‘male’ is neutral and ‘female’ is other.
I loved seeing your breakdown of books you’ve read this year. What a great split.
I had a profoundly fabulous lit teacher in college who told us, We are taught to read as men.
As in, we are taught to appreciate and admire characteristics and conventions of traditional masculinity and to analyze more deeply the motivations and troubles of a male protagonist.
That being said, I can say that as an adult, and after a survey of my kindle and bookshelves, fully 70% of the books I read have female protags. The books I read my daughter are predominantly female-centric. The books I read my students in primary school are carefully selected at fifty-fifty male/female. For every Holes, there’s a Lulu Walks the Dogs. For every Superfudge, there’s a Ramona Quimby, Age 8. Because i do not want my students expereincing exclusively male (and let’s face it, white male) perspective. I don’t want to telegraph to them through my read aloud choices that the male experience has more value than the female.
I’m pretty damn picky though. I admit that. I also admit that the only two tv series I watch are Arrow (male protag) and Sherlock (ditto) So there is that disparity.
Wow. I love what your lit professor said. It’s a great way to consider how our reading influences our thinking, because once you’ve learned to read books as a man, it’s a short step to reading the world as a man.
It sounds like you’re very well aware of your reading choices, for yourself, your daughter, and your class. Great stuff. We need more people like you. Thanks so much for sharing your story.
I haven’t read ALL the comments, so I can’t be sure this hasn’t been touched on, but a wrinkle that occurs to me is whether an author can
a) write believably for the opposite gender (“fitting into the skin”) and
b) whether if matters that you know the author’s gender.
In my long life I have primarily read science fiction and first noticed (in my teens) that I could NOT relate to Robert Heinlein’s female characters. I cannot rely on my memory as to whether he wrote any female protags (although I am almost sure he had a series with one) because I eventually decided his work was not for me. I simply remember knowing, early on, that he couldn’t know women very well because only the anatomy was changed.
Terry Pratchett created probably my favorite women protags, the witches of Discworld, true to my very soul.
On the other hand, is Cadfael (written by Ellis Peters, real name Edith Pargeter) one of my favorite characters of all time because he was written by a woman, with a woman’s perspective?
Food for contemplation…
I found Heinlein disturbing in the opposite way, oddly enough. He seemed very sexist to me.
There are an awful lot of comments to read, aren’t there? Yes, that thought has been brought up before, but only once. So, let me respond in a similar way as I did above.
Yes, it’s possible for a writer to write a character of another gender authentically. The key is to remember that the person of the opposite gender is still a person. Our gender is a facet of our personality, not the entirety of it. Male or female, we still want to love and be loved, feel safe, stand against our enemies, and possibly save the world from a deep and abiding evil, if that’s te kind of story it is.
Terry Pratchett is great at female characters, from the witches to Tiffany Aching, to Angua. Heinlein, on the other hand, didn’t write female characters — he wrote female bodies with the occasional piece of dialogue.
To my mind, the key factor in whether someone can write a person of the opposite gender authentically is really whether they acknowledge and accept that people of the opposite gender ARE people.
As to whether it matters if you know the author’s gender…. No, I don’t think it really does. In that, it doesn’t change the reading experience. Although certainly it seems to make a difference to some people in regards to their expectations of a book. (See above where we talked about some men being unwilling to read sci-fi written by women.)
Thanks so much for your comment.
When I was growing up, my family had the only boys in the neighborhood. As a result, I was essentially raised by the neighborhood girls and that has left a profound impact on what I like to read and write and who I am.
I have always gravitated to books and stories with strong female leads. I think a female protagonist can actually have more depth and be better rounded than a male one. The reason is society expects male characters to be stoic and rush off to save the world on their own. To need someone makes them weak. When writing a female character, it is not considered a weakness if she seeks out the help of her friends and shows some emotion (not the damsel in distress kind, but honest emotion).
For me, a strong person is someone who makes a decision. Bossy or not, they make a choice and take action, hopefully inspiring their friends to follow their lead and help in their cause. That is the kind of person I like to read about.
Thanks so much for commenting, Thaddeus. I think my favourite thing about your comment is that you’ve clearly taken time in your life to reflect on how your early childhood has affected your life and your reading habits.
Society does, indeed, expect men to be stoic and rush off to save the world. And that’s not always interesting or even helpful. But, interestingly, male characters who don’t do that — who are mired in self-doubt — are accepted if not necessarily viewed as heroic. Female characters who do that, however, rushing off to save the world without pausing to consider the ramifications, are immediately labelled as inauthentic, mannish, and a “girl in drag”.
I think one of the greatest things we can do is allow a whole range of female characters to exist, but also allow our male characters to seek out help without writing them off as weak. Equality goes both ways.
Thanks again for commenting.
i think that there are more male protagonists in general because girls are more likely to be less gender minded about characters and read a wider variety. Boys tend to be pickier and stick with boy things (or have fathers who may encourage them more towards male things). I also believe Harry Potter would have been far less successful if the genders were reversed. Sally Potter would not be a household name today. I have two boys also and I don’t make an effort to search for female leads. I pick out what I think they’ll like. I do avoid thing overly girly like princess stories but I’m general if I think the story is of interest to then I’ll get regardless of the gender of the characters.
The old “boys only read about boys, but girls read about anyone” is really a cultural “truism” without any truth to it beyond tradition and socialisation. Often, because we feel that boys will only want to read about boys, those are the books we provide for them. Thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It’s great that there’s starting to be a lot more books for kids with female protagonists — and ones that aren’t all frilly, pink-loving, pretty princess books. But we’ve still got some way to go.
Great to hear that you give your sons books regardless of the protagonist’s gender. You’re breaking that prophecy already. :)
Thanks so much for commenting.
Until recently the majority of books I read featured male protagonists. This past year I changed that. I had been annoyed in discussions on this topic when men would shrug and say they preferred male protagonists. Since women don’t have much of a choice we have had to be more open minded and our ability to relate more broad. It turns out that I prefer female protagonists. I am a woman so it is easier for me to relate to them. Especially now with more books available that feature strong female leads. I felt bad at first but now I get what men have been saying all along. I am grateful to all the writers who have written great leading women and the publishers who have published them. More please!
I’m not sure I understand what you are referencing (no pun intended) when you said ‘I felt bad at first but now I get what men have been saying all along.’ Can you elaborate please?
That they prefer male protagonists.
So many interesting points here, Referencegirl. Yes, women have grown up having to be more open-minded and flexible about our reading choices, because there simply weren’t as many female protagonists out there. I think boys and men miss out on a great experience when they don’t get to experience the world through female eyes — especially when you take into consideration all the research that’s been done on the link between reading and empathy.
And I love that you’ve come to realise that you relate to female protagonists. If people keep buying books starring women, publishers will keep publishing them.
Thanks so much for your comment.
I can’t speak for others, or even other guys, and I very much consider myself to be an ‘extreme out liner’ when it’s comes to ‘typical guy’ mentality (I actually despise being referred to as ‘a guy’), but speaking for myself I’ve always recognized a disparity in the number of female protagonists compared to male protagonists in my world, and honestly I’m not going to say this is a bad thing and here is why.
Ask me to name my top heroic characters and depending on my mood at the time chances are high that Ellen Riply (ALIEN franchise) and Sarah Conner (Terminator Franchise), Katara and Toph ( both from Avatar: The Last Airbender) will be among the first 10 names I put out. Am I going to try and claim that those two examples somehow make it an even match up? No.
Now if you ask me to name my top male protagonists, chances are that “The Terminator” “Robocop” will be the first couple names I spit out before thinking.
Whats the point I’m making? Well for me, male protagonists typically ‘just are’. The likes of The Terminator and Robocop are certainly memorable characters, but they are also titular characters and central concepts in their respective stories. You just can’t know either story with out knowing those characters. While by comparison the female protagonists I mentioned, while being important to the story are not self-identified by the story. You can just as easily refer to Katarra by saying “The girl with the blue dress and brown hair loops”. The stories they are in are just that, stories they are in. And don’t get me wrong, they all major and serious contributions to the story, in the case of Sarah Conner and Ellen Riply you can make a very solid case about their stories being more about them then the titular characters.
I think I’m rambling at this point. Over all, from a personal view I know there are fewer female protagonists then there male protagonists (not that you’d know that from looking at my character list in Fallout 4 though). But for me, the few female protagonists I have encountered have left a far more notable mark on me then any ten of the male protagonists that aren’t in my top five list.
Now am I saying the disparity should continue? No. I also think as our society does move toward real and true gender equality the split between male and female protagonists will likewise shift to meet that expectation, because that’s what it is. An expectation. Call it marketing, call it return investment, call it ‘sex sells’, it all comes down to business. Artists will produce what they think will gain them the greatest return. Artists who are employed by business will create material that will gain the widest public appeal. When that public appeal is based on a non-exception of gender (no public expectation for the protagonist to be male or female) I do feel we will be closer to the 50/50 split.
Thanks very much for your comment, Michael.
I hear what you’re saying, and both Ripley and Sarah Conner are icons of science fiction — not “female icons”, but straight out icons. And that’s a really powerful thing. They’re both characters that have long been considered “before their time”. Which is ironic, actually, since there really haven’t been any iconic female leads since them.
Possibly you’re right, and as our society moves towards a more equal one, the balance in protagonist gender will even itself out. Or, possibly, it needs to work the other way. Artists have a much more profound impact on society and culture than any other group. Perhaps in order to move our society towards a more equitable one, we first need to move our stories towards gender equality.
I actually focus on reading books authored by women rather than on the gender of the protagonists. I don’t count and I’m sure there’s more men than women, but I make a point to seek them out and to include and prefer women when I’m asked for recommendations and if I’m hesitating between two books I let the author’s gender make the decision.
It’s been good for me. I’ve found the stories women write more deep, more ingenious, more fleshed out, more likely to speak to me and stay with me.
In the past, I’ve always paid more attention to the author’s gender than that of the protagonist. Probably why I found this such an interesting exercise. Thanks so much for commenting, Deborah.
Read romance novels, Jo. Problem solved.
Thanks for the suggestion, Snuze. Of course, it doesn’t really address the inequality between gender representation of protagonists in children’s books, nor non-romance genres.
Thanks for dropping by.
Jo, great story and lesson. It’s amazing what we can learn from those innocent comments and queries from our children. I write and read a lot of romance so I think I have any obvious preference for interesting female protagonists. This summer I’ve been studying story and plot and have watched some real ‘guy’ movies. The Departed, a crime drama about the Irish mafia in Boston, starting Leonardo DiCaprio is pretty much an all male cast with one female romantic interest – that you could have deleted from the movie without ruining the story. But dang, that movie told a great story that unfolds well with lots of twists and turns. I’m loving two movies with Tom Hardy. The Drop and Child 44. Also crime dramas. One takes place in NYC and the other 1950ish Russia. Both are compelling stories but they also have female protagonists (played by the same actress) and they are integral to each story. Hardy is one heck of an actor, especially in Child 44. And it contains two scenes where he’s fighting and losing and his wife just jumps right into the mud to fight with him. But I get why men want to see these movies vs A rom com with Hardy. My last point is I believe in reincarnation so there’s a pretty good chance I have been a male or a female in previous lives so I have a feeling I’ve experienced the physicality and emotions gifted to both sides of this issue. While we could establish EO quotas for books, I think that effort would take a long time and a lot of social engineering to bring us to the point of being organically indifferent to the sex of the protagonist. Like another1000 yrs or so… My biased viewpoint is I feel men would understand women better and be better lovers if the read romance. I usually recommend Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ Chicago Stars books to men interested in exploring a romance because there’s a lot of football and they are humorous. And Outlander because of two well balanced protagonists,Claire and James Fraser.
Hi Thea. I loved the movie Departed when I saw it — the writing and acting are superb. But I honestly didn’t remember there was even a woman in it. So, yeah, it makes sense that you could remove her without changing the story in the slightest.
I agree that many men could do worse than read some romance. Perhaps the stereotype about women understanding men better than men understanding women has something to do with our reading options when we’re children.
One thing I do feel like I need to reply to is your comment about understanding why men would rather watch a Tom Hardy action flick than a rom-com.
Now, for the record, I don’t like rom-coms. Every now and then I’ll come across one I like (such as 10 Things I Hate About You), but they’re far and few between. I would much rather watch an action flick or… well, pretty much anything else.
I mention this only because there’s such a stereotype out there about women liking rom-coms and romance books, and men liking crime novels and action flicks. But, actually, sociologists studying gender have found that when it comes to things like movie preferences, there’s a greater variation within each gender than there is between genders.
Thanks so much for your comment, Thea. Happy writing!
You know what I would like to see? For someone to write an adventure story just like all the other ones, but using a female name for the main character. Men and women are not actually so different that it wouldn’t work.
Don’t add any romance, we don’t need one. Don’t have the main need rescuing, why would she? Write the character just like a male character and change the pronouns, because frankly woman are given more leeway to act like men than men are to act like women. Some idiot decided that man can’t cry, and that’s stuck with us way longer than the decision that woman can’t fight.
I think it writers did that it would make one hell of a statement.
I hear what you’re saying, and I think it would definitely be an interesting experiment. And I absolutely hate that men aren’t “allowed” to cry — as if expressing normal human emotion is in some way de-humanising. On the other hand, I don’t think you’d get away with a woman in that role, even though I’d love to see it succeed.
Why? Because characters like Buffy are already written off by many as being too “mannish”, and she DOES have romance sub-plots and makes bad decisions and relies on her friends. If she’s seen as not being an authentic woman, then I hate to think what would be said about a pronoun-swapped action hero.
Thanks so much for commenting.
I do *some* writing here and there, primarily my own fan fiction and sides stories and such. I’m not going to try and present myself as any sort of a ‘writer’. But In the little bit of writing I have done I’ve developed a two part rule:
If I switch a characters gender, does it effect anything beyond that point (Like I have to change the ‘he’s to ‘she’s for instance)? If it does, is it a valid change?
Basically I tend to make characters who are non-gendered to start with and decide on a gender later (surprisingly often by flipping a coin) unless I have a specific story reason for making them male or female. Like if I have a character who very recently gave birth so she’s physically less able because of the demands from the birthing and thus she is left behind and looses her child. Or if I have a character who has been physically humiliated by his rival and that humiliation involved him being castrated. These are relevant physical differences between the genders and thus guide weather I make a character male or female. However, if I have scene where a parent guns down the killer of their children. There’s no reason the character need be male or female and in those situations I tend to flip a coin to decide gender.
What I would really love to see, though, is a movie like Die Hard or the Terminator remade with an all-female cast
I’d love to see a gender-swapped Die Hard. Terminator already has one of the most kick-ass female characters around, and I’d hate to lose Sarah Conner.
One of the things I see way too much in media these days is making a character female because they can (typically to get that particular feather in their hat) and then falling back on the character being ‘a woman’ before being a character. Katheryn Janeway from Voyager got dropped into this pot fairly often and it irritated the hell out of me. The writers just so often could not write her as “The Captain” so they fell back on writing her as “The woman captain”. The episode “Good Shepard” is a good example of this problem. There are several crew members who aren’t performing up to requirements so Janeway makes it her personal mission to address the problem. Okay, bit a-typical but I have no issue with a captain being hands on. ‘Cept… she doesn’t go be ‘the captain’. She tries to be ‘the mother’. Rather then addressing the cause of the problems, she tries to coddle them and get them to play nice. I’m sorry, but you’re the commanding officer, on a ship, 60+ years away from anything you can count as home with a crew of 120-something people. 3 people causing problems and wasting time and resources is a problem that “The Captain” needs to address, not “The Woman”.
Sisko on Deep Space Nine was a nice example of the opposite approach (and coincidentally on the racial version of this discussion to boot). He was always ‘The Commander” and “The One in Charge”. There were a couple times where him being a man was involved but it was mainly in regards to a girl friend, which I can appreciate. Generally when you’re talking relationships there is a definable male/female dynamic to it even if the characters themselves may not anatomically be those genders. And I can only think of one time where him being black was even referenced out side of the flash back episodes. He was ‘The Commander’ first and never ‘The black commander’.
Sorry bit of a rant there.
Here’s a recommendation for a young adult book with a great female protagonist: The Gravesavers by Sheree Fitch. The nature of the story is one that I think would appeal to boys as well as to girls. “The Gravesavers is a humorous and heartfelt look into a devastating time in a young girl’s life. Sheree Fitch has truly captured the angst and curiosity inherent in the nature of any young person, and she has thrown in a Titanic-like story for added excitement… It is a pleasure to read a book with a real story with real people that I feel comfortable letting my children read.”
~ The Edmonton Journal
Thanks for the recommendation, Ann.
I’m an author myself, and this article really got me thinking. I’m very conscious of representation in my own books and I’ve made a point of filling my current series of books with women in a range of roles, despite featuring a highly patriarchal government which the heroine has to fight against.
I should do the same test for my own bookshelf. I’ve got three daughters, all under the age of 4, and I want them to be able to see themselves in the stories they experience. (My wife and I are making sure they see the new Ghostbusters first for this reason).
It is difficult to get past the unconscious bias that society teaches us, though. I’m still learning, every day, how to do better, both in my books and my personal life.
I tend to read literary fiction, with a particular interest in mid century female writers, so I’m guessing my bookshelves are somewhat more equitable than the norm, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see both male authors and make protagists dominating. I’m working on my first book. It’s a historical novel, based on a real person — real male person. I have found writing the female characters difficult because I want them to act, to be important in the story, but I also want historical accuracy. I hate books that focus on historical heroines who are complete anomalies – the only female forensic scientist in turn of the century Paris, the only female sea captain in 17th century Spain, that sort of thing. The women get to be adventuresome and appeal to modern tastes, but they don’t reflect the lives of the vast majority of women. Those lives were important, even if the reality of the way they were treated and their own beliefs about themselves may be depressing to us now. It’s so much harder to think about how women in the past may have figured out how to would power covertly, or to accept that a woman might have been smart and strong and all we know women are and still have led a lives constrained by the time and place. It’s easier to write a contemporary story or a fantasy. Next time I’m doing both. I have an idea for a book about four girls….
Agh, never post on a phone. “Weild” power. “Life,” not lives.
I write fantasy and urban fantasy novels, so I admit I have an easier time making sure women get to be front and center in the action.
That being said, there are a lot of historical cases of women living lifestyles that we might not think are “realistic.” There were a lot of, very feared, female pirate captains, for example. And it’s funny you should mention “the only female forensic scientist in Paris at the turn of the century,” because what we consider modern forensic science was developed by Frances Glessner Lee, who was born in 1878. Granted she wasn’t able to begin her career until 1931 due to pressure from her family, but there’s absolutely room for a book about a similar character.
Personally I prefer a good story to strict adherence to realism, but even so, we tend to assume that women (and people of colour and LGBTQ people) had a much more diminished role in history than was actually the case.
Oh, yes, they existed. I actually mentioned forensic science on purpose. But my point is not that it’s unrealistic that such people existed. It’s that by choosing to only write about those women whose lives were the most atypical of their period, we’re assuming that anyone living the way the vast majority of women did was inherently uninteresting. It’s a version of the problem of thinking female characters are only interesting if they are action heroes. (Personally, I think all action heroes are dull as dishwater, so I may be biased here). If women in the past had to be superwomen to be worth writing about, if they had to buck society and take on male-dominated careers to be considered strong enough women to be interesting, we’re discounting a huge swath of human experience and one should matter to the female descendants of all those farmwives, servant girls, midwives, ragpickers, prostitutes, gleaners, factory workers, and all the other strong, intelligent women who didn’t break any particular gender barriers, but nonetheless had stories worth telling.
That’s absolutely right, I agree with you wholeheartedly. It’s always important for an author to understand the reason they choose to write (or not write) about particular characters.
Jo, I love your article. I have a thought to add. I work in the media world and as a woman writer/director I see and experience double standards and have spent some time pondering similiar problems. To your point about there being a perception of females talking more I wonder if just the act of “talking” or expressing one self is seen as a female trait. And when you have a room full of men and women talking the dominant feeling is that everyone is being very female. Just a theory. Thoughts?
Hi Agi. Thanks for your comment. It’s great to hear from someone who works in the media world. That’s an interesting theory. I’m not sure how well it holds up, to be honest. I think part of the difference in perceptions is due not to whether “talking” is seen as male or female, but the assumption that men and women talk for different purposes.
When women talk, they’re often assumed to be gossiping, sharing feelings, or asking for help. Whereas when men talk, they’re often assumed to be networking, sharing thoughts, or problem-solving. Again, a matter of perception and bias.
Hi Jo. Thanks for your response. I totally agree with those assumptions. I’m still curious as to why when only a few women speak in a room the overall impression is that more women than men did the talking. Maybe for some, women talking in a confident and self-empowered way is so uncommon that it leaves a bigger impression? So even if only a third of the women spoke in a meeting (or girls in a classroom) men and boys feel that women dominated?
I, personally, find a major obstacle between me and the purchase of a new book with a female protagonist is the front and centre of the love story in books with a heroine instead of a hero. I’m not interested in a story that ends with a “happily ever after,” and it’s very hard to judge from the cover and first few chapters whether the romance is “spice” or the central plot. I work as a freelance fiction editor who specializes in fantasy novels (it puts my Ph.D. in medieval literature and history to good use). I’ve beta-read ten novels thus far this year — only one had a female protagonist. To confirm my fears, it was mostly a love story. I can’t disagree that there are fewer female heroes on my bookshelf, but I am always open to recommendations. Just don’t try to sell me The Notebook.
Hi Heather. You’ve hit on exactly what the problem is. Now, I have nothing against romance novels. I think they’re great, and every now and then I’ll read one. But romance is not my preferred genre.
A book where the central plot is romance, which ends with a Happily Ever After, is romance, regardless of the trappings. And, as has been discussed at length above, there are plenty of female protagonists in the romance genre. So, where are the non-romance books with female protagonists? (Yes, they do exist, and I have a number of them on my bookshelves, but they’re much harder to find.)
In terms of fantasy with female protagonists, I like Elizabeth Moon’s Deeds of Paksenarrion, Anne Bishop’s Dark Jewels Trilogy, Stacia Kane’s Downside Ghosts, and Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series.
Heather, the phenomenon you describe, namely the annoying tendency to lard in the romance whenever a female protagonist comes into view, makes it all the harder for authors who want to create a female lead without such trappings. Many readers who enjoy, for example, private eye novels would be glad to find one where the P.I. is a competent female, but they’ve been burned too many times by books that are thinly disguised romance to take a chance. I have a list of some (including lesser known ones) at my blog, http://www.GalGumshoe.com . Hope springs eternal.
Wow, what a great website, article, and readership. Where have you been all my life? I was referred here by Ronlyn Domingue on FB, and I am so glad. What an intelligent and thoughtful bunch (team? crowd? assembly?) of writers and readers.
I am so happy to have found you. As for female protagonists, I’ve written two middle-grade books, featuring Winnie as the hero. My biggest issue has been to ensure that the males don’t look like dopes compared to the females. Still working on that. :)
Welcome to WU, John! It’s the best community of writers on the internet (she says, with not a little bias). If you’ve enjoyed the conversation here, I highly recommend joining the WU Facebook page as well — there’s a link at the top of the page. (Click the F on the typewriter.)
What an amazing discovery! As a woman who writes almost only female protagonist books I’ve almost apologized for it more than once. I didn’t, but it was on the tip of my tongue each time! *hangs head in shame*
I plan to save the link to this and make myself and others read it often! Thank you! 😊👏🏻🍻
Welcome, Tamsin! Good on you for biting your tongue. It’s harder than it sounds, I know. Here’s to fighting the good fight. Happy writing!
I write YA fantasy with strong male and female protagonists – in part because of the lack I found in the industry, but also because I wanted my children to see that strength isn’t limited to gender, or even to one particular characteristic. Strength can be found in both genders, and in all personality types, as we face up to whatever challenges us. The disparity between the sexes (or races, or whatever divides into categories) will only disappear when we stop using the labels “us and “them. When reading books that feature traits we admire becomes the norm, regardless of the gender of those who display them, the world changes for the better.
“I wanted my children to see that strength isn’t limited to gender, or even to one particular characteristic.”
Yes. This. So much this. Thank you so much for putting your thoughts into words, C.A. I don’t think it was until I had children that I became profoundly aware of exactly how limiting society can be in terms of “appropriate” types of strength, emotion, and personalities.
Everything you said in your comment is spot-on. Thanks so much for commenting.
I write book reviews. Over the last few years I have found myself gravitating to reviewing novels in the women’s fiction category and with predominantly women protagonists.
Maybe this is why my following has not grown as well as I would have liked it to. But I will stay my course. I seek out well written books in this genre and continue to put them out there. My hats off to all who believe women should have a better voice in the literary world, as well the general reading audience.
Kudos to you, Karen. It sounds like you’ve made a strong decision, and I wish you all the best with it. Here’s to more females in strong roles, both within and without the pages.
I have encountered the exact same thing with my son (age six): I’m afraid I’m overdoing it with the female characters, and when I look back on the books, as you did, it turns out the scales tip heavily in favor of male protagonists. THANK YOU for taking the time to write about this!
I’m so glad I’m not alone in this, Mari. Thanks so much for commenting.
What a fascinating post and discussion. I think that unconscious sexism affects the number of female protagonists in two ways:
1. There is a huge absence of curiosity about women’s lives by males, but this is culturally supported because they don’t need to understand women to get ahead in the world, and therefore have little interest in reading stories with female protagonists. The job of understanding men is necessary for women to be successful in their careers and personal relationships though. And therefore, I think women are much more willing to read stories with male protagonists, as part of their life long study of men.
2. In literature, I think that unconscious sexism is at play when readers won’t accept females in certain roles, therefore creating a limiting factor for female protagonists. I have tried writing female characters as the absent minded professor type, but readers reject the idea, or question that the female protagonist its smart enough. I have had to work harder to prove the smartness of a female MC, where as the reader is more willing to accept the intelligence of a male MC. I have also gotten much push back from readers when writing women characters that are less than perfect mothers. So I think that some of disparity in female protagonists has to do with readers’ gender biases regarding the roles, and archetypes they are willing to accept females in.
Have any of you experienced this gender bias in writing women protagonists that go against traditional or expected roles or archetypes?
Hi, Tori. You’ve brought up some really interesting points there.
In regards to the first one, I’m not sure that I draw the same conclusion… although possibly it’s a chicken and egg thing. Yes, there’s a lot less curiosity on behalf of males to understand the lives of women. But is that because they don’t need to understand the inner lives of women to get ahead? Or is it because they were never exposed to the inner lives of women when they were kids? I’m sure the two things feed on each either quite a bit — and are passed down from generation to generation — so the answer is probably irrelevant. But I do know that it’s hard to be curious about something you’ve never been exposed to. If you’d never seen the stars, would you have any interest in imagining what it would be like to travel between them?
Your second point is…. disheartening. Disappointing. I read about having to try harder to prove a female protagonist’s intelligence, and thought: “No, surely not.” But that lasted only a fraction of a second before it was followed by: “Yes, of course.” It’s unbelievable, but not at all hard to believe. (If that makes sense.)
The feedback I’ve had along those lines was in regards to a female character who swears like a trooper, is outspoken, and not shy about throwing a punch if she’s physically threatened. A friend who read only the first few chapters commented that he expected her character arc would be that she’d learn how to be more feminine over the course of the novel. Uhh…. No.
Thanks so much for commenting.
I simply don’t know what to say about your friend’s expectations on the character arc. This is the 21st century isn’t it? So discouraging.
Golly, the character arc story reminds me of some comments on a friend’s manuscript. Her editor (no less) expressed surprise at the “bloodthirstiness” of her female protagonist, because the protag fired a weapon at a guy attempting to rape another woman. My reaction was, “How is that bloodthirsty? She was defending someone in trouble!” Moreover, the character had already been developed as someone who doesn’t shrink from a fight, so the editor’s comment was extremely puzzling.
Perhaps the poor, sheltered editor had never heard of Boadicea & the revenge she visited upon the Romans?
I’ve been reading a lot more fiction nowadays with female protagonists. Some don’t work, but usually for the same reasons that the same story with a male lead wouldn’t work.
There is no great eureka moment, reading female-hero fiction, where I say, “wow! This is so totally different!”: it’s the story that engages.
But.
A female lead allows us to see things from a different point of view. Authors like Ann Leckey, Aliette de Bodard and Ursula le Guin weave astonishing tales that draw me into this female world. There is a difference. In angst, in confidence, in the dynamics of friendship and enmity that opens up the story and brings insights that no male-hero tale could tell.
My family comprises of one male and two females. I do the mansplaining, and they shoot me down with far fewer words. I do write; and I write about them. Speculative childrens’ and YA fiction that explores their world view and their thoughts and actions – but only as I see them. I’m not female. And however much I try, I can’t get to the heart of what it is to be a girl or a woman.
This may be because I’m not a good enough writer. Or not a good enough observer. I can write about periods and feelings and how stupid men can be, but I’m not capable of displaying the heart of the feminine in prose.
More women are writing more fiction now. Not all is good; not all fiction written by men is good. But the good stuff… It needs to be read, because it is wonderful. And maybe it can help men, boys, to begin to understand the amazing range of female thought and accomplishment.
“It needs to be read, because it is wonderful. And maybe it can help men, boys, to begin to understand the amazing range of female thought and accomplishment.”
Yes, John. Exactly this. I’m sad for you that you feel like you can’t get to the heart of what it is to be a girl or woman. Actually, I’m confident that if you keep writing and observing and reading and learning, you WILL do exactly that. You sound like you’re open to the experience, and that’s really the first step. But how wonderful would it be for boys to have the opportunity to grow up reading about both male and female role-models — and for girls to do the same — so, as adults, they can understand each other’s hearts?
Thanks so much for commenting.
A thought-provoking article and illuminating discussion, thank you.
Needless to say, a spot check of my bookshelves revealed a similar tale re male/female ratio of main characters. Notable exceptions of course – the masterpiece trilogy of His Dark Materials has to be mentioned.
As a male reader I tend not to be bothered by the gender of the main character if the story is compelling. My experience (subjective of course) is that female characters, especially leads, are frequently less interesting, more stereotyped. Yes, that’s a huge generalisation, but the feeling influences my reading choices.
As a male writer I have instinctively written with female lead characters. Scary at first, because who was I, a mere male, to think he could write authentically in the skin of a female? More than once while at the planning stage of the first of my female-lead stories I wondered about changing the gender. But it could not be done, she had been female from the first thought and everything about her life and her friends would have been different. The story would simply not happen.
Those stories have been mainly well received by a mainly female readership. Only once has the question of me, a male author writing female characters, been raised, and that was by a man who congratulated me at length on getting it so right. When he’d finished and I was feeling slightly smug, his wife said loudly, ‘And how would you know if he’d got it right?’
Yes, how do we know if we get it right? And why do female authors seem to have no self-doubts about getting men right? Are men such open books? Are women such closed ones?
Perhaps I owe much to Swallows and Amazons, a gift when I was nine or ten. No shortage of female leads there.
Thanks so much for your thoughts, David.
“My experience (subjective of course) is that female characters, especially leads, are frequently less interesting, more stereotyped. Yes, that’s a huge generalisation, but the feeling influences my reading choices.”
I totally hear what you’re saying. It’s really frustrating when you read a book and the character — especially the protagonist — is a boring, stereotypical trainwreck. But, since you come across as a very open-minded, and reflective person, let me ask you this: Last time you picked up a book that had a boring, stereotypical male lead, did you stop reading books with male protagonists?
It’s one of those traits of unconscious sexism that we all — men AND women — tend to fall prey to. When we read a book, or a number of books, where the female protagonist is horribly written, boring, and completely unbelievable, we tend to say: “I’m not reading books about women for a while.” But when we read a book, or a number of books, where the male protagonist is horribly written, boring, and completely unbelievable, we tend to say: “I’m not reading that author again.” Possibly just something to consider.
“why do female authors seem to have no self-doubts about getting men right? Are men such open books? Are women such closed ones?”
That’s an easy question. Women have no doubts about getting men right not because men are open books or even easy, but because girls are expected to be able to understand and relate to boys from the time they’re old enough to open a picture book or switch on the TV. Books read at school tend to be about boys. (That’s changing somewhat now, thanks to the great work of individual teachers.) Books in high school and college tend to be about men. Girls grow up experiencing what it’s like to be a boy and a man, and are expected to be able to relate.
Meanwhile, it’s “common knowledge” that boys won’t read books about girls. So boys don’t learn what it’s like to be a girl. Women are no more closed books than men are, but men haven’t spent their formative empathising with the inner lives of women. And that’s a huge difference.
Thanks so much for your comment, David. You’re clearly doing well when your female readers love your female characters. Something we can all aspire to.
I actually have a somewhat different take on this – primarily because I listen to a LOT of audiobooks. For fiction, I like a lot of thrillers and murder mysteries. But I find it utterly distracting to hear a male narrator voice a female character. For whatever reason, male narrators always use a breathy, overtly sexual tone when voicing any female who is over 8 and under 80. The characters sound so vapid I have to consciously re-speak their lines in my head so I don’t just automatically think every female character is a moron. Because I find it impossible to enjoy novels narrated by males, I specifically look only for novels narrated by women. And, oddly enough, those novels tend to be written by women and have female lead characters.
Most of my non-fiction reading is either feminism or size acceptance, again, mostly written and read by women.
Where I do go awry is when I am listening to a book with my husband. When we listen to something together it is usually social commentary, psychology, or anthropology, and those are overwhelmingly male, again.
Although we do have to acknowledge how funny it is that there is this social contract that we should accept the male “man” as the understood universal and the female “woman” as the other… In fact, we can’t even name them without showing the “fe”male names are a derivative of the male. But we all know that we all start out female and genetics along with hormones and androgens make males out of female fetuses. It’s such a mind f*ck, isn’t it.
This is interesting:
“For whatever reason, male narrators always use a breathy, overtly sexual tone when voicing any female who is over 8 and under 80. The characters sound so vapid I have to consciously re-speak their lines in my head so I don’t just automatically think every female character is a moron. ”
I never listen to audiobooks. So I never thought about it.
I’ve run into that problem with audiobooks as well. When I was listening to them regularly, I found that I became quite picky about the narrator. In fact, I would choose an audiobook based on the narrator rather than the author or even the genre of the book.
Thanks so much for your comment.
You’ve touched on some research on behaviors and perceptions rooted in our very origin (and survival) as a species but there’s also a modern societal issue that I’d like you to consider which prevents a lot of female protagonists (and antagonists) from being written. The concept was first identified in videogames but it applies equally to film and literature:
” Do you know why there’s so many white male characters in video games? Especially leads? Because no one cares about them.
A white male can be a lecherous drunk. A woman can’t or it’s sexist. Sexualizing women and what all. A white male can be a mentally disturbed soldier who’s mind is unraveling as he walks through the hell of the modern battlefield. A woman can’t or you’re victimizing women and saying they’re all crazy.
Consider Guybrush Threepwood, start of the Monkey Island series. He’s weak, socially awkward, cowardly, kind of a nerd and generally the last person you’d think of to even cabin boy on a pirate ship, let alone captain one. He is abused, verbally and physically, mistreated, shunned, hated and generally made to feel unwanted.
Now let’s say Guybrush was a girl. We’ll call her Galbrush. Galbrush is weak, socially awkward, cowardly, kind of a nerd and generally the last person you’d think of to even cabin boy on a pirate ship, let alone captain one. She is abused, verbally and physically, mistreated, shunned, hated and generally made to feel unwanted.
Now, you might notice that I’ve given the exact same description to both of these characters. But here’s where things deviate. While no one cares if Guybrush takes a pounding for being, for lack of a better term, less than ideal pirate, Galbrush will be presumed to be discriminated against because of her gender. In fact, every hardship she will endure, though exactly the same as the hardships Guybrush endured, will be considered misogyny, rather than someone being ill suited to their desired calling.
And that ending. She goes through ALL that trouble to help, let’s call him Eli Marley, escape the evil clutches of the ghost piratess Le Chuck, it turns out he didn’t even need her help and she even screwed up his plan to thwart Le Chuck. Why, it’d be a slap in the face to every woman who’s ever picked up a controller. Not only is the protagonist inept, but apparently women make lousy villains too!
And that’s why Guybrush exists and Galbrush doesn’t. Men can be comically inept halfwits. Women can’t. Men can be flawed, tragic human beings. Women can’t. And why? Because every single female character reflects all women everywhere.
The horrible truth ls you and Sarkeesian want to craft a box into which you can force every female character into. Some idiotic ‘ideal’. Putting aside the stupidity of exchanging one unobtainable role model for women with another, this has the added problem of making all female characters exactly the same. And when all characters are exactly the same, that’s boring And boring characters do not sell video games.”
Well, J, I’m both old and geeky enough to know who Guybrush Treepwood is and to have followed him on his adventures. I agree with you that it would have been difficult to impossible, especially 25 years ago when Guybrush debuted, for that character to have been female. As others have pointed out, it’s STILL hard for people to accept female protagonists as being anything less than exemplary and extraordinary human beings. However, I think most of us here lament the fact that female characters are boxed into that narrow scope of human behavior. We need more female protagonists who are the active heroes of their stories (as opposed to the passive heroines), and we also need more female protagonists who fail, and who are flawed. I try to write mine this way, because our failings, not our triumphs, are what makes us human.
In response to J: oh well, got SO far this time before hitting a MRA troll. When you see “Sarkeesian”, we all know what’s coming up next. Everyone here has been civil except you. So please knock it off.
J- It’s not that writers and other creative artists (whether in video games or movies/tv) can’t write flawed female characters without being labeled sexist. It is that there are too few female characters in certain genres period, so the very existence of them becomes scrutinized and analyzed. Take the new Ghostbusters for example. If it had been an all male cast, no one would have been scrutinizing the representations in that movie. The fact that there are so few female ensembles leading action/adventure/SF franchises made it newsworthy. If we had lots of different types of female characters in these genres, it would not have mattered how they were represented or whether the stars were “bankable.”
There is an interesting discussion of this when the sit-com “Fresh off the Boat” was launched. Asian Americans were having “rep sweats” as they watched the show. Since there are so few Asian sit-coms, the launch of this became highly charged and they “sweated” how they were being represented (there is a great podcast on this: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/06/22/482525049/on-the-podcast-rep-sweats-or-i-dont-know-if-i-like-this-but-i-need-it-to-win). It is good? Are the representations real and authentic? Will it show Hollywood that Asians “bankable”? I had “rep sweats” of my own as a woman watching new Ghostbusters. But if I had seen lots of female leads in Action Adventure/SF, I wouldn’t have to worry about the rep sweats and there would be room for lots of different kinds of characters.
So in a way, I both agree and disagree with you. White, male characters can be so many different things because of their ubiquity and no one worries about if they are being role models or how they are representing their group. But the token female character in a video game has to stand in for so much more. If you had 5 female characters and one male character in a game (which I have never seen), that one male character would have to represent so much more and those female characters could represent the range of human experience. This all speaks to the need for more female characters, not fewer because female characters are “boring.”
Hi, J.
I was originally going to reply that I would have LOVED the chance to play Galbrush Threepwood as a teenager. Absolutely loved it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed all the Monkey Island games. But as a geeky teenage girl, I really wanted to be able to play a female character who wasn’t all heaving bosom.
That’s how I was going to begin my reply. Then I realised that this isn’t actually even your response. You’ve just copy and pasted someone else’s comment on gender stereotypes in video games — a viewpoint that’s been debated in various places, although it was originally posted on YouTube. So, unless you’re actually Merlynn132, it would be great if you could credit the author of your comment.
Thanks so much.
OH SNAP
I suggest the Tears of Rage series by M. Todd Gallowglass. Great series with female protagonist.
Thanks for the recommendation.
This is the same issue with theater. I am the founder and artistic director of Tennessee Women’s Theater Project, begun in part because “if theater holds a mirror up to nature, why are there not as many women’s faces in that reflection as I see around me?”
The perception issue has always struck me. I can remember talking to women actors who didn’t realize that the reason they struggled to get work had NOTHING to do with their talent — there were, quite simply, many more roles for men than there were for them. That they weren’t aware of that was incomprehensible to me.
In theater, part of the problem is, as playwright Lisa Kron puts it, “men are perceived as universal; women are perceived as specific.” Put in other words, men are perceived as being able to speak with authority to the “human condition,” while women are perceived as being able to speak with authority only to “women’s issues” — whatever that means! At 51% of the population, we ARE the human condition!
In theater, the only way to change that is to switch the paradigm: put as many women on stage as men, explore as many women’s stories as men’s stories, hear as many women’s voices as men’s voices and, over time, that will seem normal. *sigh*
Interesting! When I thought about it, I would have said that the books I read have overwhelmingly female protagonist. In practice, when I went back and actually counted female vs male vs multi-POV from both sexes, it was split roughly like this: 50% female, 25% male, 25% both. So I do read more female-centric books but I would have guessed it would be more than this. Now I need to go back and do this with writers…
Love the article, find it very interesting and eye opening, but then I find is author is described as amother of two, it is difficult to find a description of a male author where he is defined by his number of children or whether they are lovely or not….those little details are what need to be examined too, in my opinion.
Jo,
I’m one out of a couple hundred comments here, but I had to speak here. This was a wonderful article and you brought up all great points. My sister works in Hollywood and she and I have lamented the sexism rife in the industry there–she produces and acts. As for me, I’ve had plenty of my own experiences (How were you able to channel a male voice in Rodin’s Lover? Was it difficult? Would you ever consider writing a male POV again?).
I’ve written two novels from female POVs and one with both, and am currently co-writing a novel in which I’m the male. As a historical fiction writer, I enjoy writing the male POV because they have so much more freedom! It’s energizing and exciting writing this perspective. Perhaps it’s also because I’m a woman myself and I enjoy stepping into a “different” pair of shoes. But don’t all writers, regardless of gender? I do realize gender adds a whole new dimension to fiction, just as it does in real life. We’re watching this topic explode in the media and in our everyday lives these days.
So…like the others, you inspired me to assess the books in my house. Mine are overwhelmingly female-driven, in spite of a husband who loves sci-fi and fantasy, and a son who enjoys monster trucks. In fact, I had to seek out male protagonists for that balance of which you speak. Maybe this is because I’m an “industry insider” so I’m naturally aware of these discrepancies and overcompensate, or maybe it’s because I buy a lot of new releases and the current wave is heavy-loaded toward female protags. I’m not sure, but in any case, I love books with either. So do my kids (a boy and girl). For this, I’m glad.
Thanks for the fascinating discussion, and for tackling a topic that’s never easy. Sometimes we can’t speak up–one way or the other–without being labeled something ugly, and I’ve grown really tired of it. What happens when you say, “I like it all. Just bring on a good story?” !!! :)
Oh I have noticed. I recently gave my cousins daughter three books to look after until my daughter is old enough to read them one was about a meadow, one about a little girl making friends with another girl and the last was a series of poems about strong women in history, so, my cousin says something like ” looks like there’s a theme” meaning feminine protagonists and I retorted with a comment about it being the opposite theme of most bookshops. Folk stories seem to have alot more females I try and read my daughter those. I have noticed studio ghibli has quite a few strong females but I wholeheartedly agree with you and frankly it pisses me off.
Great article! I recently listened to Richard Fidler interviewing an Icelandic man about the sagas, and after two stories in a row about women, RF said, ‘These stories are all about the women, aren’t they!’ Two. I expected better from him.
I think our perception is skewed because we still think of male as unmarked and female as marked. The male voice does not stand out to us, but the female voice, however many times it happens, does, and so we imagine it occurred many times.
Hi Jo — Thanks so much for bringing attention to this issue. I’m a mother of five children, and, like you, have been conscious of gender in selecting our reading materials. I have a blog on kids’ books that is partly a response to this preoccupation: http://www.kidsbookcurator.com!
All the best,
LH
Hi – first time reading this blog and found it really interesting. I was an avid reader growing up, and was drawn to many books with strong and varied female leads – though interestingly thinking back my tastes were fairly old-fashioned… here are a few I remember in case you’re interested(!):
– Little Women (and others by Louisa May Alcott)
– Anne of Green Gables collection
– Little House on the Prairie
– Lots of Enid Blyton (Malory Towers and Naughtiest Girl in the School were faves, as well as the Famous Five/Adventurous Four)
– The Chalet School series
– Milly Molly Mandy
– Ballet Shoes/White Boots (Noel Streatfeild)
– When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (series)
– What Katy Did (series)
Perhaps I was drawn to those more ‘old-fashioned’ books because they featured girls more than the more contemporary stuff? I’m not sure.
Looking at my list, I’m not sure how many boys would be drawn to it – though that may well be sexist too. I remember us reading ‘Rebecca’s World’ at school which the boys enjoyed – interestingly written by a man. Another series which features a female lead and is I think enjoyed by both genders is the Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman (another series of his also features a strong female character – Sally Lockhart of ‘The Ruby in the Smoke’). Do men do a better job of writing female leads that other men and boys can relate to or are male readers more likely to accept a female lead if she’s been written by a man? Interesting things to think about.
Will have to have a look at my bookshelves when I get home, though I can still think of many featuring female leads – Memoirs of a Geisha; The Elegance of the Hedgehog; I Capture the Castle… as others have pointed out, perhaps linked to my taste in genres… more food for thought!
Anyway, mainly wanted to say thanks for a thought-provoking piece – I really enjoyed it, and the comments that followed.
Your post struck a chord for me, however, I didn’t find the information surprising. Adventures of boys and men have always permeated our channels of entertainment, though I applaud you for your efforts to make sure your boys are exposed to both male and female heroes. When my children were little, it never occurred to me to do so.
Over the course of my life, I’ve heard, endured, and felt the negativity aimed at the female gender. More so lately with the nomination of the first woman candidate for US president. What does surprise, and sadden me most, is much of it comes from women themselves.
Writing stories of strong female protagonists is a good place to effect change. It may not draw an immediate end to negative societal gender gaps, but our gift as writers can help to shape minds of future generations.
Thank you for your inspiring post!
At our homeschool co-op, I’ve taught a 7th-8th grade Great Books class for the past two years. I’ve tried really hard to find quality classic literature that featured female protagonists. Last year we covered the modern era, and had about 4 of our 20+ selections with female leads. This year we’re covering the ancients. I only found one. Well, two really, but the second one made the protagonist into “I’m a typical troublemaking girl who needs to be rescued from my own foolishness.” No thank you.
The question I’ve asked for years is “where are all the girl and her dog stories?” As a father of four wonderful young women I’ve always wanted more stories of heroic journeys for my girls to relate to in the same way that I had stories to relate to while growing up. Even when we do get “strong female characters,” a term with its own set of problems, the struggles those characters face are almost always set (at least in part) against the backdrop of “which boy that loves them will they choose.” I’m not saying that their isn’t a vast improvement from the gender representation of previous eras. There has been. I remember being a huge fan of the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony as a teenager and years later finding the books on clearance and buying them. I remembered stories full of strong women and looked forward to handing them off to my girls. But after reading them as an adult I was horrified to see all the misogyny they contained. I guess it’s really up to us though. If we want to read more stories that feature female authors or female characters (notice I don’t say the Strong Female term because your protagonist should always be a well developed character regardless of gender) then we need to buy those books that feature them. And if we can’t find those books then we need to take the advice of I believe it was Toni Morrison who said, I”f there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
Hey Jo,
Great article and good point. As a female scientist, I think about this stuff every day. Not to diminish your article and the real point, but it looks like you have a good list of great books there.
I have a one year old, and we love reading already. From the article, it seems like you have a long list of good books for little kids. Would you be willing to post or email me a list of them?
Based on the title of this article, I was hoping to read an opinion on some common weakness in the manner in which female protagonists are done. Or perhaps how they’re used poorly, or in the wrong stories, or something like that. Instead, I’ve learned that your problem with female protagonists is that there aren’t enough of them, which I found disappointing.
I’m a writer, and I care deeply about writing compelling, well-developed characters. I’m a man, so I don’t have firsthand experience on what it’s like to be a woman, obviously. So I was curious to see if there was some information in this article which could help me improve the way I write female characters in prominent roles, hence my initial disappointment.
That being said, I did find the article interesting. Particularly the observation that there seems to be a skewed perception for how frequently women talk, how many female protagonists there are, ect. I have been asked why I always write female characters at least once, despite writing a comparable number of male characters.
You seem to think this perception skew is a problem, but I’m undecided. Without understanding it better, and knowing why it happens, we can’t know what course of action should be taken regarding it. That said, it is certainly a subject worthy of further exploration, and making people aware of it and getting them to think about it is the first step.
Offhandedly, I can think of one potential explanation which might put this in a different light, and that is that men are more likely to pay attention and remember when a woman is speaking, likely due to some biological imperative. Again, it’s just an offhand theory, but if it’s true then it would make the perception skew a side effect of something that might not be so bad after all.
Lastly, I don’t think that the ratio of female-to-male protagonists is a problem. As long as you are able to find enough well-developed female protagonists in well-written stories to satisfy your need for female protagonists, as long as you are able to find a well-rounded and diverse collection of them, the number of male protagonists doesn’t matter. It has no impact on the quality and availability of female protagonists.
Now, if you struggled to find suitable female protagonists, there you’d have your problem. But the fact that you didn’t even notice until you counted would seem to indicate that this problem is really just a waste of your worry.
But to further set your mind at ease, I’ll ask you a question. How has the ratio of male to female protagonists changed over the past decade? Over the past century? I think exploring this question you will find that you don’t need to worry about that after all. You will find that things are already moving in the direction you want them to go, and quite rapidly.
I’ve put a lot of time and effort into investigating gender representation, in books, movies, tv shows, video games, you name it. Things are getting better, but there’s still an awful lot of work to be done, and anything which draws attention to societal bias against women is a positive thing. I’ve barely scratched the surface of my own understanding of gender bias, there’s always more to learn, but I know enough to understand that if we let up, even a little, we’ll lose what representation has already been built for women (and this goes for people of colour and LGBTQ people as well).
Also speaking as a writer, I’ve found it very easy to learn how to write women. They are, after all, people, and I know many of them. It didn’t even require directly asking “how do I write women?” I simply paid attention to the women in my life and the relationships I’ve built. I read books by women, I read blogs by women, about what women enjoy in books. The information is all out there, if you want it.
I know the information is out there. In fact, I expected it to be in this article. That’s why I read it in the first place. I write good characters, both male and female, and I know that gender is only a one of many pieces that go into characterization. The point of my initial paragraphs was not ‘I don’t know how to write women help me’ it was ‘This is what I was expecting to read and I find your title misleading’
I’m not satisfied with merely being good at writing. That’s why I read stuff like this. In case someone has thought of something I haven’t that’s useful to my writing. This wasn’t useful. Of course you don’t have to ask yourself ‘how do I write women’ in order to learn to write women. But I never pass up a chance to ask if there’s a better way to write anything. Am I doing this right? How could I do this better? Regardless of what ‘this’ is, these are questions I constantly ask. Today, ‘this’ was women because that is what the title of this article led me to expect to be reading about.
[Insert segue]
I’m a little unclear on what sort of representation throughout media you think is good for women/not-white people/LGBTQ. I hear fairly consistently that they aren’t represented well/enough, but I rarely hear how they should be represented.
The problem is, what you’ve done by saying that the problem isn’t perhaps as bad as Jo believes is known as gaslighting. It’s a technique to make people doubt that their feelings are valid, to maintain control over them, so it’s not a constructive way to engage with the issue, particularly since the article wasn’t what you were hoping it would be.
As to your segue, women, people of colour, and LGBTQ people should be represented fairly and equally alongside straight white cisgender men. At the moment, they aren’t.
Do you mean equal in value or equal in how often they show up or some other equal or some combination thereof. Equality sounds nice, but it’s become vague as it’s used more and more broadly.
So, according to you, I’m gaslighting…or maybe it’s just that the problem might actually not be that bad. That could be my honest opinion. I might not be a manipulative patriarchal stooge.
When someone says ‘hey, cheer up, this might not be as bad as you think.’ or ‘Things are getting better.’ or ‘There could be a brighter side to this.’ and you call it gaslighting, that’s just another way of dismissing their opinion. That’s what’s not constructive.
Those responses are, themselves, dismissive.
I find it hard to belive you don’t know what equality means. I doubt there’s enough space here for me to properly advise you, but as a starting point, I’d reccommend looking up the Gina Davis Institute and its work to improve women’s representation in movies and tv. They have some excellent research on how much women are under-represented in the media.
As an aside, it’s important to remember that this isn’t just about numbers of women in stories, but also how they’re represented. The entertainment industry is primarily geared towards straight men. I’ve blogged about this a lot, but in general, men are presented with admiration, something to aspire to, while women are presented as a sexualised objective for men to acquire.
This year’s Ghostbusters was the first mainstream sci fi action movie to have an all-female lead cast. The last time any major mainstream movies had an all-female lead cast were Sex and the City 2 and Bridesmaids. Women are primarily depicted as add-ons for men, not characters in their own right.
Luke, if the article didn’t provide the information you hoped it would, that’s not Jo’s problem. Once sentence into the piece, it’s clear her intent was not to provide a how-to guide but to point out a problem most recognize as something that ought to be addressed. You disagree there’s a problem–fine; that’s your right. But you seem personally angered that Jo’s article wasn’t what you hoped it would be. That’s an unfair critique because she didn’t write it to teach Luke how to improve his writing, she wrote it to comment on a literary gap to a broad audience.
Here’s an example of women being depicted as add-ons, as Paul says. In the Wheel of Time fantasy series, authors Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson do a good job of featuring a half dozen well-written female protagonists, and one of these makes a major sacrifice to ensure victory in the final battle. However, in the climactic duel between the uber villain and the main hero, Rand, there are 3 women in the room whose only role is feed Rand magic. They’re like a tripod and they do nothing to help him other than provide passive support. The authors dropped A LOT of breadcrumbs suggesting that Nyneave, one of the key female protagonists who’s there as Rand’s backup, might do a major thing to help Rand defeat the villain, but she in fact does almost nothing (she does use her nonmagical skills in a helpful way but her actions are so modest and anticlimactic compared to what I expected her to do given those breadcrumbs). My point is, the authors had already laid the groundwork for this female character to do something awesome and dramatic to help the hero defeat the villain, and they ignored their own foreshadowing and had Rand do a solo run into the end zone while the women simply cheered from the sidelines. If Nyneave had played a more active role, it wouldn’t have diminished Rand’s victory, but it would have made the end of the (14-book!) series a lot more satisfying for readers.
You are becoming increasingly obtuse with your answers. I did not ask you what equality meant. I asked you what YOU meant when you used the term. Instead of giving me a straight answer, you pretended that people always mean the same thing when they say equality. Equality can be used to mean ‘equality under the law’ ‘two things that are the same’ ‘two things that have the same value’ and those are just a few examples of how it is used.
A.M Justice, I provided an explanation of what I expected based on the title, why I thought the title was misleading, and spent the rest of my post discussing what I liked about the article and presenting an alternate viewpoint.
My responses have served largely to explain myself to someone who doesn’t seem to understand what I was saying, and my intention was not to further expound on why I was surprised by the article’s contents, but to clarify what I’ve already said.
I think it’s very clear, both from the article and the majority of responses, that we’re talking about equality in terms of representation in fiction. Men and women are not, as of yet, represented as equals in the majority of fiction, or even a large minority of it.
And by equals, I mean equal amount of appearances in roles of varying importance, equals in power dynamics, sexual agency, narrative relevance, etc.
Luke, if you’re looking for examples on how to improve the way you write female characters in prominent roles, I suggest taking a look at Game of Thrones. George R.R. Martin writes amazingly compelling and powerful female characters.
I have been doing the same, trying to have a good mix of leads. One of the problems is that a majority of the girl led books seem geared older, I’m mostly reading to them about 5th gradish, and all of the great female lead books I can think of I kinda want to wait a year ot two, or have female leads but from a sexist viewpoint.
I am seeing more female protags in new kids books though, so it is getting better, I think.
Give any of Bruce Coville’s books a try – he seems to aiming at the 5-8 grade age, although the books are certainly accessible to kids older and younger than that. He generally has a nice balance of genders in his books. The Magic Shop books are probably most easily available, but others of his would also fit your requirements.
This article was shared by a dear retired teacher friend. I will now share with all of my teacher friends-male and female. As a junior English teacher that must focus on American literature during a certain time period I can say it gets monotonous reading about old white men! Ha ha! Thank you for the enlightening and eye opening article.
Heidi Guza
Skyline High School
Idaho Falls, ID
Some interesting points. Though I don’t have kids…. I am working on my internal landscape. I think it probably goes deeper than that.
For me. One particular root of the problem is whether people can perceive a woman to be equal to a man in possibilities.
I’ve had to wade upstream in my internal dialog to get to a point to where I can hold space that supports the idea of men and women being equal to possibilities and working cooperatively together to achieve a single defined goal.
We hear about police and firefighters and athletes in the news all the time. Though I suspect the images that go with those circumstances probably come up in a similarly disproportionate way (more male than female). It’s something that is supported very unconsciously without many paying attention.
We need to keep paying attention and correcting as we can.
Debates like this – whether it “not enough female” or “not enough African American” or “not enough white” or “not enough Christian” or whatever – always leave me shaking my head, because they are predicated on a single faulty premise that is the cornerstone of so many problems in our society – people *assume* that they can only identify with, admire, and emulate those who are like them. Girls need female role models. Christians need Christian role models. Boys need male role models. African Americans need African American role models.
Hogwash.
If you want kids to learn about the world, you should intentionally avoid stacking the deck with nothing but like-minded, like-gendered, or like-raced heroes (either fictional or real) and encourage them to read stuff that showcases the radically different from themselves parts of the world.
While I’ll admit that my own bookshelves probably only contain 10-15% female-protag stories (not counting those in ensembels), I grew up reading such stories right along side those with male protags, and I made no distinction – I wanted to be as much like Anne McCaffrey’s Kilashandra Rhee or Diane Carey’s Piper or even Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman, as I wanted to be like Ben Bova’s Orion or Anne McCaffrey’s Jaxom. (Yes, I mentioned Anne McCaffrey twice – the lady was a freakin’ genius). I’ve never had any gender or racial identity issues, I was simply able to see and admire the positive qualities inherent in any protagonist, whether they looked like me or not.
That’s what we should be teaching kids. Teaching them to seek out and emulate only that which is like them is teaching them to reject that which is unlike them – and that’s the source of bigotry and division.
PS: My favorite fiction with female protags:
* Anne McCaffrey’s Crystal Singer series
* Swordswoman by Jessica Salmonson
* Diane Carey’s pair of “Piper” Star Trek novels
* Elizabeth Moon’s Esmay Suiza series
I am a big admirer of Anne McCaffrey too, but I do have to disagree with you that kids don’t need characters who mirror their experiences in some way. I am a children’s librarian and there is a lot of talk about diversity in literature these days. Kids need books that are mirrors to reflect and affirm their experiences. You’re right that kids should be able to identify with lots of other kind of people characters. So they also need books that are windows to take them beyond themselves. And if your identity or experiences are honored in literature, it may be that much easier to connect to a character who may seem initially as an other. For my own son, I want him to have both. Books that are mirrors and affirm his experience and books that are windows and allow him to experience something new. I don’t think it is an either/or game. Let’s make room for all of the above!
Adding more different protagonists is not only about providing mirrors for a wider variety of readers. It is part of encouraging the default reader – white boys – to read about and empathize with others; people with differing points of view, genders, sexual orientations, skin colors…
Lee- Yes, books should be both mirrors and windows! I was trying to paraphrase in my comment something that the Rudine Sims Bishop blogged about, but I think you missed the part about books also being windows. I can’t find Bishop’s original blog post about it, but this is also a good one: https://blog.leeandlow.com/2013/02/04/what-does-this-book-have-to-do-with-me-why-mirror-and-window-books-are-important-for-all-readers/
Excellent post, and kudos for your efforts in trying to raise an open-minded son. I came across your post on Facebook, where someone I don’t know had posted it saying (rather grandly) that SHE had always been a tomboy and SHE doesn’t write female protagonists because she can’t relate to them and they’re never interesting.
Wow. How would little girls who don’t like girly-girl stuff (that was me; still is) find something they do like if writers don’t create it? Same goes for grown-up fare. I write in the viewpoint of both genders, but my central characters are tough, smart women because that’s what I like to read. Not all of us want to read Muffy Goes Shopping and Falls in Love.
Thanks for a great post substantiated with data.
one more thought now that I’ve read all the comments and haven’t seen it said (and if it was and I missed it, I apologize. )
How does that difference in protagonists effect world view? Girls who grow up reading stories about guys, with women side characters at best. Boys growing up where every story is the guy’s story. I worry that dehumanization of women in the minds of some men start here because the guys are raised to believe that it’s all about the guy because that’s always the viewpoint they are given.
I’m doing my best to boost the signal. I’ve recently reviewed books by female authors with female protagonists.
Excellent point, Alexander Hollins. And even as a kid — I’d say elementary school — I noticed that boys almost never read books by a female author, whereas girls read oodles of books by male authors. Happily, some grow out of that double standard. Unhappily, it’s ONLY some.
What a great article! Your response to the first comment above reminded me of something that disappointed me in my mother of blessed memory’s (z”l) film-viewing habits; you wrote, “…consider this: girls are expected from a young age to be able to ‘fit into the skin’ of male characters. I think it’s incredibly important not only that girls have a range of female characters to represent them, but also that boys (and men) learn to do the same with female characters.”
Now, my mom (z”l) had sophisticated taste in movies and books, but whenever I suggested to her that I had seen an amazing film the stars of which were lesbian characters, she wasn’t interested. My mom (z”l) was one of the most amazing champions of her own lesbian daughter (me) you could ever want in a mother, however, she just wasn’t interested in those plots, she said. It didn’t matter when I told her, But I’ve grown up, seeing heterosexual (love) stories portrayed by default and I’ve found ways to be moved by those films …. People have just so much discretionary time, I guess, and if we’re privileged to be among the historical majority, then we have the luxury or even the BAU opportunity to watch and read only what reminds us most readily of ourselves, or for whom we can imagine feeling the most empathy … I guess. All the luckier for those of us who’ve been required to stretch if we’ve wanted to participate in appreciating the prevalent culture around us ….
Excellent post, Jo. Great topic, well written post, all sorts of engagement by readers of the post. Thanks so much.
I went through my books and to my surprise found many more books with female protagonists (about 70%). It was surprising to me because I prefer to write male protagonists (less then 20% have female protagonists) and honestly expected my reading preference to match. Granted, many of my books had male characters one could have debated to be a second protagonist, but for the sake of these numbers I only considered one protagonist where possible. I definitely agree with what Mike said in a previous comment; if a book doesn’t catch my interest I’m not going to pick it up just because of the gender of the main character, however I think I’ll keep an eye out for male protagonists from here on out. Thanks for the great article!
I’m an acquisitions editor and I read hundreds of manuscripts a month. They run about 7 to 3 by women authors, 3 being male action writers who want to be the next Lee Child. What most of my aspiring young authors fail to realize sadly is that it is not a male/female statistic that gets their work published, it is that over 60% of readers do not return to a book they put down for over a few days. That means heart grabbing moments, page turners, chapter transitions with the heroin not at the edge of the cliff but falling over… are the new required norm with our crazy busy lives today. Add in structure, dialogue, and an iron solid plot and you do get the rare Hawkins “The Girl on the Train” as a first novel in a new genre of amnesia where the story line itself is the weapon, not the firearms (ala Gone Girl or Silent Wife). Just a note to authors, yes, go for it with women protags, but as many have also said, do it well, show it don’t tell it, and grab the emotions by torturing the heck out of your protagonist, giving her overwhelming desire coupled with danger and a situation that, after the reader loves her, she CANT walk away from, and so neither can the reader. High STAKES is the name of the game in today’s world dominated by do many other media than books.
The fix is easy: read romance.
100% female protagonists, wide variety of genres – crime, paranormal, historical, thriller, mystery, horror.
Maybe it was the guidance of my family, or my hippie-ish elementary school teachers, but as a boy growing up I don’t remember taking any real note of the distinction between books written by male/female authors, or with male/female protagonists. Books like Bridge to Terabithia, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Tuck Everlasting, Harriet the Spy, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the Earthsea series, the Wrinkle of Time trilogy, the Oz books — all of those were favorites, and some are still among my favorite books, period.
As I got into my mid- to late teens, and more into fantasy and science fiction, I’m sure the proportion changed. I was drawn to the stark, unsparing brutality of Stephen King’s darkest works, which felt like they were telling me difficult truths about human nature that other authors were too polite (or frightened) to speak aloud. I also was interested in sexuality, and male authors tended to have sex scenes that were more explicit and unapologetic — though the later Clan of the Cave Bear books were famous (and popular) among my circle of friends for their raunchiness.
I did still read LeGuin, along with some of Anne McCaffrey’s books, and also came to know authors like Connie Willis and Nancy Kress through Asimov’s magazine. But it’s also true that there was something I wanted — call it an uncompromising truthfulness indifferent to social mores — and ultimately, I felt more likely to find that thing by turning to male authors like Harlan Ellison, King, and later Hemingway. (Whether I was right or wrong about that is another story…)
I’ve never been able to find it again, but I read a brilliant essay once — I believe it was a prominent feminist thinker, someone like Shulamith Firestone (though I don’t think it was her) — that had an interesting argument about gender roles in literature. Essentially, the author said that most boys’ first experience of women is as gatekeepers and caregivers, whose role is largely to keep them away from danger, steer them into socially acceptable behavior, and otherwise organize their lives. However, this authority role isn’t enforced through physical superiority (as is the case with the father), but through guilt, shame, and other negative emotions that teach children to inhibit their impulses, curb their own behavior, and cultivate a sense that they owe a debt (especially to their mothers) that can never be repaid and will always be a source of obligation.
Consequently, these boys often come to perceive women as cautious scolds who, on the one hand, claim to want to “keep them out of trouble” and to have their best interest at heart — but are also clearly resentful of the boys’ comparative freedom and uninhibitedness vs. their own circumscribed station, and want to crush and control that buoyant life force just as they themselves have been crushed and controlled by our patriarchal society.
So the heroic narrative of a lot of fantasy is also (in the eyes of this author I’m half-remembering) also a narrative of getting-away-from-female-authority-figures — either by going somewhere where traditional rules don’t apply (an epic battle, a magical land, etc.), or by otherwise finding a way to become a person who never has to submit to anyone else’s will, unless that will can be backed up by overt power of one kind or another. And all of that is a powerful force working against identification with female characters in older children’s and young adult fiction.
It was an interesting argument that’s stuck with me ever since, partly because it was a refreshing surprise to see the young male experience treated with sympathy and without pathologizing boyhood, but also from a clearly and unapologetically feminist perspective. I wish I could find the original source.
If you wish to read a series where there is a strong female protagonist (and strong female antagonist) , you might try my dark elf series called “Orbbelgguren” and the offshoot book called “Emilia”. Also, my books “Harbinger”, “Lost Souls” and “Hunt for Quintano Roo” all have very strong female characters.
I think you’re also seeing a historical bias, most books, including the greats, are from a time of unevenly regarded genders. It might be instructive to take your three piles of books, and further divide them into books written last century and this century. I think you might find (hope, anyway) that it’s an artefact of when the books were written.
No, nice post. Sometimes I feel the problem is not with female protagonists, but how we raise boys. The idea that real people = men and women are “also ran” is a big thread in our culture. From the “Adam’s rib” story on, many of our old myths need to evolve to show the human race, not what we have today, which is literally “the story of
Man.” Looking forward to more stories of human.
“Do you consciously try to find a balance between male and female protagonists in the books you read and write? How do the books on your bookshelf stack up?”
No, I don’t try to find a gender or sexual balance in the books I read and write. It’s not a main concern of mine as a reader and writer. A quick guess regarding the books on my bookshelves is that the majority of them are written by men and describe the actions of men more frequently than they do of women.
Of the two books I’ve had published, one is written in a male voice and from a male POV (“High Street”, a memoir), and the other is written in third-person (“Franny & Toby”, a children’s chapter book), and the protagonist is female (she’s a cat; it was not my intention to write a book with a female protagonist, but that was the way it turned out). Some of my stories are written from female POVs or in female voices, but the majority of them are male-oriented. It’s not something I think about too much, other than thinking about what does the story need and what does it demand. It seems likely that my male bias is due to my being male.
I want to beat a drum for Terry Pratchett. An insightful iconoclast who de-constructed fantasy and put it together again in a completely different way. I know that that he was a thorough Brit and that could raise cultural difficulties for american readers who might not be aware of some his oblique cultural references but he did write some wonderful, powerful female protagonists who could serve as role models to both sexes. Tiffany Aching is the antidote to Harry Potter. Granny Weatherwax is a powerful witch, too proud to be bad. Nanny Ogg is the architypal mother figure but with a voracious appetite for pleasures and Susan Sto-Hellit ( the adopted granddaughter of Death) is the kind of clear-sighted, incisive female who could lead a Fortune 500 company.
Huge Pratchett fan, though some of his female characters tend to start looking a little two-dimensional across multiple books. However, they *get* multiple books, which is amazing in itself. Would also point out the feminist efforts in Feet of Clay, Equal Rites, Monstrous Regiment, etc. Also, a shout out to Lady Margolotta and Glenda Sugarbean.
I know I have a preponderance of women in my book because a) I won’t buy it is it isn’t written by a woman, and b) I won’t buy it is the gender balance isn’t in the women’s favor.
I am happier in my reading than any time in the last 40 years.
Now I am working on expanding my list of women authors to include more women of color and women with different sexual orientations. I expect that to be interesting.
When I read the headline of this Aricle I thought : Whhaaat?! Wait a minute… there is no problem at all with Female Protagonists!! Once I Started reading it I totally agreed on thae fact that there has to be equality in ever aspect Literature, cinema, daily life! Enjoyed the article. Gracias!!!!
My question would be… is it harder as an author to get a book containing a female protagonist published? Being new at this publishing game, I went the route of seeking out reputable agents. Many loved my writing but didn’t read my entire novel, despite claims that it was engaging and well written. The content surrounds rape culture and shows many different angles including the very lovable, yet manipulative and confused protagonist. Content is both relevant and on point to recent rape culture news and Media coverage, yet it’s wrapped in a time-travel, drug induced world of caos.
It may suck, in reality, but I don’t think that’s the problem….
If anyone hasn’t read Maggie O’Farrell yet I can recommend The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox for female protagnists. Happy reading.
I realize that this may be slightly off topic, but I was in an all ladies book club where every individul had at least one chance to decide on the book we read. It was over a year before we realized that every book chosen was written by a female author. It was kind of a cool feeling that it happened that way…
Your article makes complete sense to me and I find that sometimes if you think about it too much or try too hard about anything, really, it can end up being counter productive. But, strangely enough you can learn the most from when things happen naturally. We were all craving some girl time and used our book club as an excuse to get together, and in the end even the book’s authors became honourary members of our club. :)
Lovely! Thanks for sharing this.
Jo–
Great article, and thank you so much! Huge kudos to you for managing to read and thoughtfully respond to the many (and refreshingly intelligent) comments here.
Lacking your patience, I have finally skipped to the bottom of the comment thread–I could swear that when I first read your post yesterday I had followed a link to an article about the science teacher you mentioned, but now I can’t find it. My key words aren’t getting me to the right neighborhood. Little help?
I only encountered your blog for the first time yesterday and now I already wish I could sit with you over that cup of coffee.
Great post. I teach a course for STEM graduate students on teaching and diversity. I stumbled across your post looking for sources about representation and the issues of ‘space’ and ‘voice’ in the classroom. I would love to have them read the research on how the presence of minority voices may cause the impression that those voices dominate. (I have had this experience in my teaching evaluations in other classes – one class on gender and all of sudden students say gender analysis dminated). Can you point me to the “research” that you discuss in the post? I am looking for articles to assign. Thanks!!
Do you consciously try to find a balance between male and female protagonists in the books you read and write?
In what I read, not consciously. I read what I like, and right now, that almost entirely consists of books written by friends of mine. I have many writer-friends who are publishing excellent books. :)
As for writing, I do try to better balance. I ask myself, “Could this character be a different race/sexual orientation? Does it make a difference? Would it, in fact, be BETTER?” If the answer is ‘yes,’ I do it without hesitation. I ended up with a trans-woman secondary character who is going to be a blast to write when I get around to her part. She’s already bucking for a bigger part in the next story.
I have given this topic extensive thought, as I have a tendency to write white male protagonists, but strongly believe there should be more females at the forefront of our story worlds. This has concerned me. What I have come to is that writing white male characters allows the character to be ‘free’ to be themselves, unencumbered by gender, racial or cultural expectations. A white male character can be a total arsehole and no one is going to accuse you of portraying men, or white people in a bad light, they will simply accept that the story is about that individual. Conversely if you write a female, black or brown arsehole you are in for a whole shit storm of criticism, you have to defend every choice that character makes, because somehow when we consume stories about anyone other than a white male we force those characters to be flag bearers for whatever minority we perceive them belonging to. I find this restriction creatively stifling. Then there is the question of audience engagement. Women are highly accustomed to empathising and experiencing a story through a male character and have no trouble making the switch from their femaleness to enjoy stories about men. The same cannot broadly be said of men, I do not find men are as easily able to get involved with female characters, they tend to remain outside the story as an observer rather than a fellow traveler through the story world. Men also have a tendency to diminish a story with a female protagonist as lightweight or chick lit and tend to either ignore it or read it with a more skeptical eye…. I think this is why I like writing white men, I can just write the character without alienating or losing half the audience, and I don’t have to justify their particular weaknesses or foibles through the filter of political correctness. I still write female protagonists, but it is far more difficult, and it usually attracts much greater criticism, because it is viewed not as a portrayal of character, but a portrayal of a whole gender. Totally unfair, and it sucks… but after a lot of thought this is what I have come up with to explain my slight preference for white male characters… yes I know I should be ashamed, but I want to be free to write characters, and white males are what we consider as the normal, so you can write them anyway you like…. shame on me :-(
Great post Jo, thanks. Some of the comments question why it’s important to have an equal number of female protagonists in what we read. This is important, as we should be producing a market for books with female protagonists to challenge the male ‘norm’. But what’s more important, as your post hints at, is showing our kids by story-based examples, that women can be strong, important, leading characters in the world, and the world can be relevant and interesting from their perspective, including for boys reading the books. Boys should also see these strong female leads so they grow up expecting it.
With a boy myself, I’ll be keeping an eye out to make sure his books show a lot of strong female leads as well.
Could you provide the gender of your books (aka sci fi)? I did the same exercise and came out pretty even 48/52 (my sample size is about 352 series up to date). Can you also provide the stats in which while the female character is not the main protagonist she is show as strong? in this case from the 52% about 60%, the female character is show as strong and or stronger that thee main character
But yet again I am more into Manga and anime, where my fav series is Slayers and Ghost in the Shell
I’ve tended to focus on female protagonists in my writing. I didn’t set out to do so but featuring strong female characters became the right fit for me. I’ve found them to be much more compelling to write and pitching them convincingly against patriarchal archetypes has been satisfying to accomplish.
I never even considered this issue until I read this article. I look to the personality and character of the protagonist to decide how much I like them. Are they smart, funny, virtuous and strong? Are they relatable? Do they have problems, concerns, likes and dislikes with which I can identify? There are what are important to me. A lot of my heroes are women. I find Terry Pratchett’s three witches, Tiffany Aching and Miss Susan, to be every bit as interesting, admirable and inspiring as Sargent (captain, Duke) Grimes.
As I age, i find myself reading more women writers than men simply because I like a to see the inner “landscape” of characters. My favorite genre is sci-fi/fantasy and I find that I have read thirty stories written by women for every one written by a man and, at least eighty percent of the protagonists in these stories are women. I just think it is the “age of the woman writer” in sci-fi, mystery, detective, fantasy, horror and suspense. In fiction I find that female authors just do a better job of “fleshing out” all their characters.
I don’t know if I’m “sexist” or not in my reading choices. In fact, I don’t even care. I read what I enjoy and , it happens that, at the present time, I enjoy female writers and female protagonists. I am not interested in the political, social, economic or cultural implications of it all. In reading fiction I simple avoid all “romance” novels and I am happy.
I apologize if I did not contribute anything “meaningful” to the discussion.
Now I’ll go wait for Kim Harrison and Charlene harris to write new series, continue to mourn Terry Pratchett and, re-watch my Buffy the vampire Slayer (Shakespeareian in scope!) box set and leave the intellectual “heavy lifting” to those more suited for it than I.
It’s encouraging to read comments like yours, Ronald.
I teach elementary school. I curate the chapter books I read aloud in class based upon two factors (a) appropriateness for age level and (b) gender representation. That being said, I read a lot of Lemony Snicket (ensemble 2/3 female) to second grade and my Louis Sachers were always interspersed with Ramona Quimby books. In kindergarten this year, I have introduced Junie B. Jones books which are hilarious early chapter books featuring a sassy little girl protagonist. They all like it. I had two boys object initially that it was ‘another girl book’ only to be reminded that I had successfully read Jerry Pallota’s Who Would Win? Killer Whale Vs. Great White Shark without turning int a boy, so they were probably safe. This elicited lots of laughter and the issue was closed. They’re at a stage in which they have very rigid gender identities developmentally but I am taking pains to bring a multiplicity of voices to my read alouds with particular focus on gender (I do not read enough books with protagonists of color and I am in process of acquiring some new titles for that purpose).
A professor of mine once told us we were taught to read as men, not as women. To read from the dominant culture standpoint of white male. I believe that.
This is a very late reply, but my problem is the opposite. Almost every book I read has a female protagonist. I’d put the ratio at 10:2. I have to actively search for a male protagonist once in a while, which really bugs me. It’s probably because in the romance/adventure genre it is dominated by female leads. I’m in highschool, which might be why there are so many female leads. It’s extremely frustrating. But I do not think it has anything to do with sexism or any other thing like that. It’s simply what the author thinks will fit best for what they want the character to do, and what readers want in that specific genre. The term sexism is thrown away far too much and it’s meaning has nearly been lost.
Jo,
I heartily agree that books have traditionally been geared with male characters. Lord of the Rings comes to mind right off the bat. The Fellowship was comprised of nine characters – ALL of them male. The adversaries – ALL male.
When I was in 6th grade, Reading was a class everyone had to take. Some of course, who didn’t like to read, looked for the thinnest books with the largest print. Me? I’ve always loved to read, and I did the exact opposite. I looked for the thickest book with the smallest print. Among the selection the teacher had on her cart were quite a few fantasy books. The first I read was Dragons of Autumn Twilight, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. That was my first real introduction to the fantasy worlds where magic is real and dragons fly through the skies. I fell in love with those worlds instantly, and devoured the book so quickly that when I told the teacher I had completed the book and wanted the next one two days later, she didn’t believe I’d read it. I proceeded to give her a breakdown of the book from start to finish. And then grabbed the second book :)
Now, this was over 25 years ago. The thing was, a lot of those book heroes were male characters. The big muscular warriors, the wizards… there were female characters, but like Lord of the Rings, they tended to play minor roles or stood behind those male characters for protection.
When I began my writing career back in 2010 or so, that was one thing I felt needed to be changed. And that’s what I’ve done. I’ve written several fantasy books based in a world I created from the ground up, and while there are male characters in it… the girls have the spotlight. And they’re not the typical knight in shining armor heroes. One is a thief. Another an assassin (though she doesn’t like being called that, as she dispenses justice to those who deserve it). Another is a mage who is the first to walk a path of magic that none have been able to in a thousand years.
I write Paranormal Romance as well. Again, while there are male characters, the spotlight falls a lot on the female characters.
And my latest release, which is an Urban Fantasy, the leading role is? Of course! A female character.
And it’s not just the ‘heroes’ side. The ‘villains’ side is dominated much of the time by female characters.
What I love most about the women being in the spotlight (on both sides) is that there’s this balance within them. They can hold their own and don’t stand behind their male counterparts for protection, but rather beside them… and often a step ahead of them. And yet they still retain their femininity, and in those moments can still show a softer, gentler side that you don’t often get with male characters because… well… that’s not ‘manly.’
Things have shifted a bit I think in these past years, and women are taking up those leading roles more often. It’s still not quite an even ground… but I’m not going anywhere. Strong, compelling female characters in the leading roles… it’s kind of my thing. And I absolutely love it.