Write Like a Girl
By Jo Eberhardt | October 7, 2017 |
Photo by Thomas Wolter
My original intention this month was to write about some of the common challenges people have when writing across gender lines—that is, male writers writing female characters and female writers writing male characters. For some people, this comes quite naturally. For others, it seems an almost impossible task—particularly when the character in question is the protagonist.
However, when I started to put together this article, I realised that there is another topic to be tackled first—and that is the stereotyping of female characters as a whole. Rather than try to say everything I wanted to say in a single post, for this month I’m going to concentrate specifically on writing female characters without devolving into ridiculous stereotypes.
Save the Day Like a Girl
The phrase “like a girl” is one that has had negative connotations for a long time. I remember it being the insult of choice back when I was young enough to count my age in single digits–and, according to my children, dinosaurs roamed the Earth back then.
Some of the discussion in the comments of my last post veered in exactly this direction, and reminded me of the ad campaign #LikeaGirl from a few years ago. You’ve probably seen this video at least once over the last three years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs
In one of the other videos from this ad campaign, a young girl specifically says: “It’s always, like, the boys who rescue the girls in the stories.”
This is the world that most of us have grown up in–a world where “like a girl” is an insult, implying a lack of skill, knowledge, or competence; where “running like a girl” means worrying about your hair, flinging your hands around ineffectively, and probably tripping over and spraining your ankle; where male protagonists were considered the “default” setting. The idea is still out there that books about girls are for girls, but books about boys are for everyone, especially in children’s fiction.
And while there are genres where female protagonists are common, those genres are often seen as being written primarily for women.
There are a lot of writers stepping up and changing that situation. But there are just as many who still find it hard to envision a female protagonist who is just as competent, brave, and heroic as her male counterpart–at least, without also worrying that she’s too “manly”.
Be Heroic Like a Girl
For whatever reason, I’ve often found that the people who struggle the most with writing strong, competent, fully developed female protagonists are female writers.
Much like in the video above, we’ve internalised the idea that women are incompetent when it comes to physical activity (and maths), and can be even more guilty of playing down the strengths of our female characters than many male writers. I freely admit that there was a time in my youth (possibly around the point when dinosaurs went extinct) when I wouldn’t even consider writing a female protagonist because I knew it would be lame.
How could a female hero possibly save the day when she was bound to sprain her ankle or break a fingernail along the way?
Obviously, that’s ridiculous. I’m a woman, and I’ve never once tripped over nothing and sprained my ankle. Nor have I ever stopped doing something because I broke my nail. I can’t imagine I’d care about my manicure with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.
I’m a woman, not an idiot.
Notice Ridiculous Stereotypes Like a Girl
One of the first things to do, however, is to simply notice that these stereotypes exist–not just in our own work, but in all the stories and media we consume. Despite how far we’ve come, they’re still out there. And sometimes they’re so ingrained and internalised, we don’t even notice them.
My general, all-purpose, go-to question when I’m trying to figure out whether a scene is authentic or sexist is to simply ask myself: “Would this seem ridiculous if it was done by a person of the opposite gender?”
- Would it seems ridiculous for Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson to fall over and sprain his ankle while running through a field? Yes. Yes, it would. It would be played for laughs.
- Would it seem ridiculous for Chris Evans to bounce on to the screen, his hair dyed in rainbow colours, while he showed the heroine how to embrace the present through his quirky antics? Yes. Of course it would.
- Would it seem ridiculous for Jennifer Lawrence to stare broodingly at Joseph Gordon-Levitt, occasionally inflicting back-handed compliments on him, until he falls in love with her? Yes. It’s ridiculous from both sides.
Write Like a Girl
One of the most interesting parts of the above video is when the young boy says that he was insulting girls, not his sister.
When we consider that female characters are real people–individuals–rather than representatives of an entire gender, it suddenly becomes much harder to treat them like bad stereotypes, and easier to write them as authentic characters in their own right.
And, really, that’s all it takes.
What are the gender stereotypes that annoy you the most in fiction?
[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.
Thanks for the post Jo. I’m always concious of the fact that my 12yo daughter might read my scribblings some day, so this is an important subject for me.
What gender stereotype annoys me the most? A Straw Misogynist.
When you have an antagonist that’s sexist for the sake of being sexist, it limits the kind of interactions they can have with the protagonist. A one-note villain only requires a one-note hero.
Truth.
I also really like keeping in mind that your daughter may read your work. In my experience, nothing keeps us quite so honest and thinking about how our children will react to what we write.
My least favorite gender trope in all of fiction is the older, more experienced, and more powerful man falling madly and unprecedentedly in love with an underage teenager, an extremely sheltered and naive woman, an impoverished or damaged Cinderella type, a captive who he has imprisoned/freed, a sexualized robot, or basically anyone who is so vulnerable and dependent on him that she has has questionable claims to free will.
I especially don’t like this trope when it’s mixed with the man expressing in first person how he just can’t HANDLE the complexity, mortality, and less-than-fawning attention of some other woman in his own age range or with similar levels of education and adult life skills. (Often, this is the woman he’s actually dating or married to.) I also don’t like when there’s a lot of comparisons about how a more capable, probably older woman is unattractive/boring/nagging/uninspiring compared to the little girl figure.
That’s a really good one (or bad one, really). Honestly, I hadn’t even considered this particular trope, but as I was reading your answer, half a dozen movies and books came immediately to mind.
That mixes both sexism and ageism into one neat little bundle of awful.
Hey Jo – This is a topic that is never far from my mind. As you know, one of my prominent story elements is an all-female warrior sect. And though my heroines are not superwomen, they’re pretty darn kickass (if I do say). I work to make them not only competent and strong, but… well, human. Each of my Skolani are individuals, with unique virtues and flaws.
But the warrior woman trope is not without it’s stereotypes and pitfalls. Very early on, a fellow writer asked the questions, “Why make them as strong as men? Why can’t they just be smarter?” I’ve never forgotten it. But it sort of bothers me, too. For me, the question presumed not just the physical differences between the genders. My female warrior characters have devoted their lives to training and study. They’re diligent and graceful and accurate, as well as clever. And yes, they’re strong (a lifetime of training will do that, regardless of gender). And since they are clever, they understand the physical differences between themselves and their male opponents, and utilize them to their advantage whenever possible. Just as any wise warrior would. Just as a wise male warrior would be mindful of the stealth, speed, horsemanship (horsewomanship?), and lethal skill with a blade of my female characters.
I created the Skolani over a decade ago now. But I never stop asking myself the questions–all the way to regularly asking myself why I want to portray women warriors in the first place. Thanks for the renewed invitation.
I think asking yourself those questions is what separates you from many other authors writing female characters. (Well, that and your sheer awesomeness, of course.)
I remember having a conversation with my son when he was about seven, and he came home from school with the grand pronouncement that “boys are faster runners than girls”–something he’d heard expressed by a number of boys in his class. That led to a HUGE discussion (as you can probably imagine) about differences between and within genders. The end result of which was that, yes, if you take a man and a woman and you have them both train for the same amount of time every day for a decade, then chances are the man is going to be faster than the woman. Because physiology. But a woman (or girl) who spends all her time running is going to be a hell of a lot faster than a man whose only exercise is walking to and from the fridge.
Stereotyping happens–obviously–in terms of gender. But the problem is made worse by shopworn genre tropes. For me, the whole hero/heroine-saves-the-day/city/world/galaxy motif requires cliché characters blessed with super-human brains and brawn. I write crime fiction that mostly involves amateur criminals, and a woman central POV character who ends up involved with crime without seeking it out. This approach gives me more freedom to develop “normal” behavior in both my male and female characters. Or so I hope.
I totally agree, Barry, that gender stereotyping is part of a larger stereotyping problem. If we treat all characters as real people, regardless of gender, and give them authentic stories designed specifically for them, well, most of the battle would be won.
and adding to the discussion, could we all be sensitive to how the general culture continues to call women “girls” long after they are over 18, have a mortgage, a car, kids, a well-paying and fulfilling job, etc. See Mayim Bialik’s recent video. https://www.facebook.com/MissMayim/videos/10158471910985008/
Very true, Maggie.
I feel like there’s actually a word missing from the english language for a female between being a child and being a woman.
Males go from being boys to guys to men, but females only have girls and women. If we’re going to consider that ‘girl’ equates to ‘boy’ in terms of age, that would make it unsuitable by the age of 13 or so. So, at least in this part of Australia, ‘girl’ is generally considered to be the female equivalent of ‘guy’, which is used for males from age 13 on to about 25 or so.
(Personally, I feel more comfortable identifying as a girl than a woman–possibly because I don’t have all of the things you identified as belonging to womanhood. :) But I’ve been making a concerted effort to use the word woman in reference to myself over the last few years.)
This is such a great post and so important, Jo. I think about this nearly everytime I sit down to write. I think the gender stereotypes that annoy me the most are when authors are trying to pretend they aren’t stereotyping people (or authors think they aren’t when they really are). So, stories that bend over backwards to make it *appear* that men and women are equal but at the same time have women display characteristics that are gender stereotypes. I guess I’m thinking of many modern love stories or stories that feature women in jobs that are historically dominated by men. I admit that I struggle at times with this myself (without really realizing it) and constantly double and triple check myself. It’s a balance between *noticing* and categorizing someone as a *girl* but then making her a unique person without making it *because* she’s like a girl.
Does that make sense? Thank you for these posts — they’re really thought provoking.
In a college group that I was in, a guy next to me was talking about a girl out of earshot and her achievement, “That’s pretty good for a girl.”
I know of where you speak. I do however believe that writing a story should be gender neutral, and it truly doesn’t matter what sex you are to write well. After all these days we have six to chose from….
When a reviewer who self-identified as a Southern redneck wrote, “Kary is CLEARLY a hero, by any criteria you want to apply apart from armed combat,” I knew I had achieved my goal.
That he is talking about a woman who is a reclusive writer is icing on the cake.
The stereotype that most annoys me is when men are portrayed as stupid, incompetent boors who can barely feed themselves, drive a car, or relate to their own children.
Running a close second is the corresponding female character who condescendingly manages the man’s every move.
I should also add that the video highlights a very real problem. The whole idea of using “like a girl” as an insult is reprehensible.
My pet peeve is not a stereotype–it’s getting a book with a large cast, and there’s maybe one or two women in the entire book. And not only that, their roles are very small, almost like afterthought, like the writer thought, “That’s right, I have to put in some women characters for the women readers.” Like they thought having any women in the book wasn’t particularly important or necessary.
Agreed! I love realistic, high-quality female characters. This reminds me of something I read about Lord of the Rings. While Tolkien uses few female characters, those few make many of the very most important contributions to the story.
Hi, Jo:
I was fascinated by your insight that it is women writers who seem to have the greatest difficulty writing strong female characters. That hasn’t been my experience, but I’m intrigued.
As for men, I’ve discovered that a man’s ability to depict women characters well is in direct proportion to their ability to listen to the women in their life.
I like to think I’m good with women characters. But even I earn the entirely justified remark, “Did you hear what I just said?”
David, can I quote you on this?
“I’ve discovered that a man’s ability to depict women characters well is in direct proportion to their ability to listen to the women in their life.”
It’s fantastic. I’ll give you the byline, promise!
Thinking about whether the scene would work if the genders were swapped is helpful. I’m sure lots of people think the movie Gravity was good for women because it had a major female role and a woman as an astronaut. But imagine if the two characters were played exactly the same, but the opposite genders. That movie would never be made, and it shows how sexist the movie really is.
Women do not have to be physically dominant to be strong.
Let me repeat that. Your heroine does not need to literally kick ass to be kick-ass.
There are many kinds of strength and power–physical aggression just happens to be the easiest to default to, because it’s 1) obvious and 2) valued highly as a masculine trait.
There’s nothing wrong with a heroine who is physically powerful (Jessica Jones? Yes please) but just remember that this isn’t the only form of strength you can give your “strong female character”.
I guess this is something I never really thought about as a person or a writer. I read a lot of books aimed toward girls. I read a lot of books aimed toward boys. I write predominantly female MCs in stories that /I/ want to read. She’s always the heroine in the end, but sometimes along the way she’s the damsel, sometimes she’s weak, sometimes she needs help, sometimes she falls in love, sometimes she /is/ stereotyped.
I appreciate this post because now I might look at my characters a little different. What have I been troping that isn’t character building for my readers? Can girls read my books and feel unconquerable? Or do they feel like only a man can save them?
Last week, I finished reading THE SWAN THIEVES by Elizabeth Kostova. Long read, fascinating braided stories that kept me interested throughout.
The chapters are mostly titled with a character name, and the protagonist who does a long setup of the story, is referred to as “Marlow.” A psychiatrist and artist, and up until almost the very end of the book, I thought Marlow was female.
Perhaps I missed that Dr Marlow’s first name was “Andrew” but s/he just felt female, even when talking about how attractive another woman was or saying that s/he didn’t have a wife — either of which could be true if Marlow was, in fact, female.
I thought it would be interesting, if a film were made of this book, to gender-swap, though it would change the dynamic with Dr Marlow’s patient, a male character. And when the doctor’s girlfriend announces she’s pregnant with his child, that would be challenging…
But it made me think about why I felt, early on, the character was female. Nothing overt, no stereotyping (though many of the other characters were, whether macho-male or girly-female).
I write non-fiction, but in my current book-in-progress, I’m a woman writing about men. So I look forward to your series on this topic.
I’ve got to disagree with with a statement you make here:
“My general, all-purpose, go-to question when I’m trying to figure out whether a scene is authentic or sexist is to simply ask myself: “Would this seem ridiculous if it was done by a person of the opposite gender?” ”
This seems to me to be a very poorly thought out guide for the very simple reason that on that thinking, any scene is sexist which is specifically masculine or feminine. Or, to put it another way, that trick only works if there actually would be no difference between a female and a male in that scene’s situation. In some scenes there won’t be. But in many there are.
Your chosen guide depends there being NO masculinity or femininity in your stories at all, which is simplistic and untrue to the human condition. Neither quality should be treated cheaply, or disdainfully. But neither can they be honestly ignored.