Day 4: Again with the Peticoats
While writing a scene for one of my lead females today, I stumbled into an entertaining thought. I write Rei, giving her traditionally masculine characteristics - sparse dialog, cunning, rationale, strength. While tragedy forces her to grow up fast, her first act of adulthood is to cut her hair and prepare for war, both things that make her physically more masculine.
The question I found myself asking was this: Are female characters respected in fiction because they act like men?
Starbuck in the new BSG fights, flies, drinks and smokes as well as, if not better than, the boys and for this we love her. But when she gets emotional as anyone in her situation would and takes on a feminine appearence, she gets offed. Arya in A Song of Ice and Fire keeps her hair cut short, looks like a boy, fights like a boy, talks like a boy, and for all intents and purposes, becomes a boy. Eowyn, in The Lord of the Rings, hides her femininity to ride into the battle and instantly becomes a reader favorite. Ellen Ripley in Alien, definitely masculine in appearance and attitude, is pretty much the most awesome badass in the movie. She takes out alien scum while any other man or woman fails. Are these female characters admirable because they act like men? Or because they cast aside their femininity, as though it were a weakness?
To counter this, there are shows like Firefly where each female character maintains her authority and feminine characteristics without coming across as a complete contradiction. Buffy the Vampire Slayer follows in much this same vein. Other more extreme examples include Xena, Trinity, Catwoman, and Molly from Neuromancer. I would argue though, that when taken to this extreme, the attempt at creating a strong female character becomes more of an attempt to exploit the sex appeal of strong and decisive women.
Just a thought. And the word count is coming along just fine.
So say we all.
Bri
3 comments:
Well, on your last matter, of it being related to the sexual appeal of decisive women, think about the difficulty in writing something that can't be interpreted as that or the opposite stereotype.
If you make them emotional in the slightest or overly caring, even dressing too softly, people hate you for reinforcing the old stereotype
Then there's the original masculine type you began with, which we see the consequences of.
Finally, you make them violent but sexy, and then people complain that they're just sex symbols.
Personally, I say stop caring, lol. Everything can be interpreted in a negative way.. you just have to decide what your character would actually do and not care about what everyone thinks.
Hmm... it's a hard balance to strike, but I take my cue from David Weber's Honor Harrington series. She nicely balanced between masculine aggressiveness and feminine cunning, with all the emotional stuff thrown in.
A couple of the books are simply gut-wrenching. They wouldn't work if Honor was a 'Starbuck'.
A smart woman is just as sexy as a curvaceous one, but I agree with Charlie with one caveat: stay true to your character and your character will stay true to the story.
I'd have to agree with you for the most part but as far as Ripley and Eowen go I'm not sure.
My mother works in D.C. as an Army Major looking to be a Lt. Colonel. She is almost at all times in a masculine atmosphere. She can't set aside her feminimity though because to men don't let her forget she is a woman. I know because I have seen they way they address her and while not prejudicial, they still can't help but talk and look at her differently, even though they are trained to treat everyone in the military as Military not male or female.
Applying this to Ripley I'd have to say that she is at her most masculine at the beginning of the movie (I'm assuming this is Aliens 2, I can't remember the others very well) and later when she is waltzing through the nests and killing Aliens left and right looking for Newt (?) she is at her most feminine. Even though she is carrying this impossibly large weapon with a FLAME THROWER (really masculine) she is looking for a child. Newt isn't her daughter but she is still connected to the girl because of their predicament.
Also, as a side note, after her time in the office, Mom goes and looks for ways to be feminine. She hates having to be uniform and act less feminine and at times masculine, so she takes the time to be super-feminine. I'm not rightly sure how because she lives in D.C.
Ok. Longer than I expected. I had a good idea about Eowen but I have to read Return of the King again. It's been a while. I agree with you on the others though.
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