Thank you, John. I was literally talking about this subject with someone over dinner, earlier this evening. You put things a lot more eloquently than we did, of course.
I am increasingly annoyed by the way female characters are written in movies. There are so many ways to make a “strong female character”, but in the eyes of modern day script-writers an “empowered” female character either has to be extraordinarily strong physically, unrealistically sexual or both.
I don’t understand why strong women can’t be strong because of their knowledge, their discipline, a natural talent that they possess or because they are good mothers, for instance.
Don’t even get me started on what Amazon Prime has done to Galadriel’s character in Rings of Power. Galadriel was an angelic being in Lord of the Rings and her powers used to be magic and wisdom, but judging by the trailers the writers turned her into a warrior with a sword and an armor... and that’s just very disappointing.
Regarding the writing of female characters I agree with Russell. I do have a theory that it can be difficult for the inexperienced female author to write about characters of the same sex that are not at least partly based on their own idealised self or vilified 'other women' because of their mental hardwiring.
Most women try to maintain a social network in which to fit in. This used to be about protection many moons ago when people easily died, pregnancy was a vulnerable time and a woman alone could not support herself. Nowadays it is more about mental support but it still works the same. In a well balanced group of women no-one really stands out. If one does not blend in with the others she will sooner or later be seen as competition, since she does not seem to have the same intent as the others, or a misfit, and there is a probability others will try to undermine her social standing and isolate her from the group.
There are women who would like to take a chance to stand out and grab the attention of potential partners or try to get ahead of others, but the risk just may be too high for them to try it.
By writing a specific character the author can be the female who gets it all, love and validation, while also dealing with her competition who do not stand a chance in the world she created. It is quite a alluring fantasy.
I tried to think of some good female characters and objectively (!) the best one is of course Eowyn, who ends up slaying a Nazgul, which is probably the most masculine activity I can think of. Also not to forget Princess Leia Organa, who I can’t seem to find a picture of where she isn’t holding a gigantic gun of some description. So I would argue that while masculinisation has been A problem in recent years there is a different issue at the core: Ever since adopting intersectionality, feminism has morphed into a movement advocating for hedonism. Women (and other MiNoRiTiEs) shouldn’t feel the need to be virtuous since the moral virtues are all put in place by the patriarchy - furthermore, since the MiNoRiTiEs have suffered oppression in the past they shouldn’t have to make an effort to achieve anything - things ought to simply be handed to them as a form of retribution - or help anyone who isn’t below them in their fictional power hierarchy.
Hence we see these extremely unlikeable female characters who make up for the challenges of womanhood - for example physical weakness - not by employing different positive traits like cleverness or dedication, building strong friendships, etc. but rather by behaving like dicks, taking advantage of people less powerful (think of the legendary scene of Captain Marvel stealing some bloke’s motorcycle) or being manipulative and overly sexual (too many examples to keep track of).
Eowyn on the other hand survives her intervention thanks to the compassion which lead to her taking Merry with her to the battlefield as well as unbelievable bravery.
Very interesting piece. I think the analysis by negative archetype is interesting and helpful, but would like to see an analysis by positive archetype, too. Though perhaps there are more ways to be a good man and a good woman than there are to be bad? I don't know.
Also, the show Veronica Mars is explicitly trying to gender flip the hardboiled detective tropes, including the femme fatale, with the character of Logan Echolls, and he's not really submissive, though he is manipulative, dangerous, and violent.
Very well thought out piece. I hope many future writers take your advice. It would be nice to see a piece of creative art that isn't full of "strong wahmen" but instead has some actual women.
Very well thought out piece. I hope many future writers take your advice. It would be nice to see a piece of creative art that isn't full of "strong wahmen" but instead has some actual women.
The colour of baked beans! LMAO. We call them the oompa loompa chicks
Astonishing, isn't it, folks still tiptoeing around the subject of mysterious beings comprising half of humanity. Agreed, in certain settings, gender will be defining, in order to be plausible. Any character must be appropriate to the geography, time period, setting etc. Established canons need to be respected (ahem, Amazon)
In art as in life, a portion of the population squirms at the notion of feminine agency. Female protagonists as a main character or in positions of authority? As in actual people? Bit feminazi innit...
In recent young adult fantasy fiction, there are plenty doing a great job of this (Susan Dennard, Rachel Hartman, Sarah J Maas). I am really enjoying them, despite the younger target audience. Anne McCaffrey was way ahead of her time, and somehow managed to write female characters without being labelled as a niche "feminist" author, thus rendered unthreatening to the dudebro status quo, unlike Marion Zimmer Bradley et al
Feminine physicality is the most loaded. Only acceptable if very sexualised (eg. Angelina J in Tomb Raider). Remember after the first Wonder Woman movie when the redpill loonies went hysterical - Olympians, cross fitters and MMA fighters playing Amazons? Everyone knows Amazons are hot sluts in push up bikini armour! Like any action movie, it had impressive choreographed stunt scenes and special effects of implausible strength/ speed. But apparently only Superman and Aquaman get to do that. The online meltdowns were gold.
Some more extreme woke stuff will push the bounds too far to be plausible, but over time drifts towards more normal, as their audience is limited. The universe moves towards equilibrium.
This is probably going to be useful to refer back to to keep myself in check since what I'm writing has quite a few female characters (I could describe in more detail... but I won't, not here anyway) and the entire nature of the story actually depends upon them being feminine (it wouldn't make any sense otherwise).
Teeny tiny nitpick; if you meant corsets the European women wore in the 19th century to bind their waists, those have 'bones', strips of metal or another material placed 'top to bottom' in a corset. The results were temporary, although you could 'train' your waist to become accustomed to tightlacing, so that whenever you wore a corset you would slowly be able to cinch your waist more and more over time. This was mostly practised by fashionable well-off young women, usually for social gatherings.
If you think about how the body reacts under stress, it is no wonder so many them fainted when exposed to something unpleasant and how this was eventually picked up as a pinnacle of refined feminine behaviour. But no matter how you lace it, you need to re-learn how to breathe since you can barely expand your chest. If you're not used to wearing a corset, even talking will make you breathless.
Fashion is wierd. I have a pair of lotus shoes for bound feet and the largest one, they were costum made for the woman who wore them and are both slightly different, is about as long as my index finger.
So pleased i can continue to follow Johns work here despite the departure from Lotuseaters.
Even more pleased that you occasionally pop back to show them how its really done.
Still bloody annoyed i couldn't get my nettle wine to LE before you departed! I had hoped for notes from a fellow homebrew connoisseur.
Keep up the fantastic work, all the best to you :)
Thank you, John. I was literally talking about this subject with someone over dinner, earlier this evening. You put things a lot more eloquently than we did, of course.
I am increasingly annoyed by the way female characters are written in movies. There are so many ways to make a “strong female character”, but in the eyes of modern day script-writers an “empowered” female character either has to be extraordinarily strong physically, unrealistically sexual or both.
I don’t understand why strong women can’t be strong because of their knowledge, their discipline, a natural talent that they possess or because they are good mothers, for instance.
Don’t even get me started on what Amazon Prime has done to Galadriel’s character in Rings of Power. Galadriel was an angelic being in Lord of the Rings and her powers used to be magic and wisdom, but judging by the trailers the writers turned her into a warrior with a sword and an armor... and that’s just very disappointing.
Regarding the writing of female characters I agree with Russell. I do have a theory that it can be difficult for the inexperienced female author to write about characters of the same sex that are not at least partly based on their own idealised self or vilified 'other women' because of their mental hardwiring.
Most women try to maintain a social network in which to fit in. This used to be about protection many moons ago when people easily died, pregnancy was a vulnerable time and a woman alone could not support herself. Nowadays it is more about mental support but it still works the same. In a well balanced group of women no-one really stands out. If one does not blend in with the others she will sooner or later be seen as competition, since she does not seem to have the same intent as the others, or a misfit, and there is a probability others will try to undermine her social standing and isolate her from the group.
There are women who would like to take a chance to stand out and grab the attention of potential partners or try to get ahead of others, but the risk just may be too high for them to try it.
By writing a specific character the author can be the female who gets it all, love and validation, while also dealing with her competition who do not stand a chance in the world she created. It is quite a alluring fantasy.
I tried to think of some good female characters and objectively (!) the best one is of course Eowyn, who ends up slaying a Nazgul, which is probably the most masculine activity I can think of. Also not to forget Princess Leia Organa, who I can’t seem to find a picture of where she isn’t holding a gigantic gun of some description. So I would argue that while masculinisation has been A problem in recent years there is a different issue at the core: Ever since adopting intersectionality, feminism has morphed into a movement advocating for hedonism. Women (and other MiNoRiTiEs) shouldn’t feel the need to be virtuous since the moral virtues are all put in place by the patriarchy - furthermore, since the MiNoRiTiEs have suffered oppression in the past they shouldn’t have to make an effort to achieve anything - things ought to simply be handed to them as a form of retribution - or help anyone who isn’t below them in their fictional power hierarchy.
Hence we see these extremely unlikeable female characters who make up for the challenges of womanhood - for example physical weakness - not by employing different positive traits like cleverness or dedication, building strong friendships, etc. but rather by behaving like dicks, taking advantage of people less powerful (think of the legendary scene of Captain Marvel stealing some bloke’s motorcycle) or being manipulative and overly sexual (too many examples to keep track of).
Eowyn on the other hand survives her intervention thanks to the compassion which lead to her taking Merry with her to the battlefield as well as unbelievable bravery.
Very interesting piece. I think the analysis by negative archetype is interesting and helpful, but would like to see an analysis by positive archetype, too. Though perhaps there are more ways to be a good man and a good woman than there are to be bad? I don't know.
Also, the show Veronica Mars is explicitly trying to gender flip the hardboiled detective tropes, including the femme fatale, with the character of Logan Echolls, and he's not really submissive, though he is manipulative, dangerous, and violent.
...colour themselves like baked beans....
Never heard fake tan described like that before. This phrase will now live rent free in my brain.
Wonderful article, John. Thank you for writing it.
Heading over to the Twitter-verse to share with my meager 32 followers. Much good it may do. ❤️
Very well thought out piece. I hope many future writers take your advice. It would be nice to see a piece of creative art that isn't full of "strong wahmen" but instead has some actual women.
Very well thought out piece. I hope many future writers take your advice. It would be nice to see a piece of creative art that isn't full of "strong wahmen" but instead has some actual women.
The colour of baked beans! LMAO. We call them the oompa loompa chicks
Astonishing, isn't it, folks still tiptoeing around the subject of mysterious beings comprising half of humanity. Agreed, in certain settings, gender will be defining, in order to be plausible. Any character must be appropriate to the geography, time period, setting etc. Established canons need to be respected (ahem, Amazon)
In art as in life, a portion of the population squirms at the notion of feminine agency. Female protagonists as a main character or in positions of authority? As in actual people? Bit feminazi innit...
In recent young adult fantasy fiction, there are plenty doing a great job of this (Susan Dennard, Rachel Hartman, Sarah J Maas). I am really enjoying them, despite the younger target audience. Anne McCaffrey was way ahead of her time, and somehow managed to write female characters without being labelled as a niche "feminist" author, thus rendered unthreatening to the dudebro status quo, unlike Marion Zimmer Bradley et al
Feminine physicality is the most loaded. Only acceptable if very sexualised (eg. Angelina J in Tomb Raider). Remember after the first Wonder Woman movie when the redpill loonies went hysterical - Olympians, cross fitters and MMA fighters playing Amazons? Everyone knows Amazons are hot sluts in push up bikini armour! Like any action movie, it had impressive choreographed stunt scenes and special effects of implausible strength/ speed. But apparently only Superman and Aquaman get to do that. The online meltdowns were gold.
Some more extreme woke stuff will push the bounds too far to be plausible, but over time drifts towards more normal, as their audience is limited. The universe moves towards equilibrium.
This is probably going to be useful to refer back to to keep myself in check since what I'm writing has quite a few female characters (I could describe in more detail... but I won't, not here anyway) and the entire nature of the story actually depends upon them being feminine (it wouldn't make any sense otherwise).
Hm, I like the sound of that whole 'defending the family castle with a 9ft lethal pole-arm' thing... Thanks for the very interesting article!
Teeny tiny nitpick; if you meant corsets the European women wore in the 19th century to bind their waists, those have 'bones', strips of metal or another material placed 'top to bottom' in a corset. The results were temporary, although you could 'train' your waist to become accustomed to tightlacing, so that whenever you wore a corset you would slowly be able to cinch your waist more and more over time. This was mostly practised by fashionable well-off young women, usually for social gatherings.
If you think about how the body reacts under stress, it is no wonder so many them fainted when exposed to something unpleasant and how this was eventually picked up as a pinnacle of refined feminine behaviour. But no matter how you lace it, you need to re-learn how to breathe since you can barely expand your chest. If you're not used to wearing a corset, even talking will make you breathless.
Fashion is wierd. I have a pair of lotus shoes for bound feet and the largest one, they were costum made for the woman who wore them and are both slightly different, is about as long as my index finger.