Strong Female Characters

[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith has posted here (and on LJ) a discussion on this article on “What Do You Mean When You Say You Want ‘Strong Female Characters’?”

I had strong feelings about it reading Ysabet’s post, stronger ones having read the article, but… putting those aside for a moment, what do YOU think? What makes a strong character?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/118694.html. You can comment here or there.

36 thoughts on “Strong Female Characters

  1. It seems like the concept is continuing to evolve. “Women can’t do the things men do!” “No, actually, women can act like men and be good at it.” “No, wait, women can act like men while still being women and liking flowers.” “No, wait, women can act strong without acting like men, and they’re still strong if they’re not perfect.” “No, you see, that’s proof women can’t do the things men do.” (Says Line One, who is still around and obnoxious.) And the debate rages on~

      • Because the feminine role in society was unbalanced when robots started doing traditional Women’s Work faster and less back-breakingly. A woman’s work of baking, cooking, clothing and laundering for her kith and kin became economically obsolete, turning a lot of women into idle hands at the ship’s tiller. Since then, as a society, we’ve been trying to figure out what women are going to do instead, since their economically feasible and important role is no longer, hm, essential. (I have opinions.) But also: women can do the things women do. It’s just people are going to gripe at them about it.

        • I meant more biologically/emotionally, not Western Women’s Roles. Nurture. Empathize. Better hand-eye coordination. Not Lift Heavy Things (I can’t lift heavy things) But you do have a point. So. Assuming a technological society in which women don’t need to bake or launder or gather and men don’t need to lift heavy things and kill stuff… what do the differences become?

          • You would say women are biologically prone to nurture and empathize, rather than socially? I mean, more so than men? And – well, that’s why society is becoming more egalitarian, isn’t it?

            • That’s what biology has selected for. It’s a tendency, not an absolute, but it’s there. Men vest minimal energy in creating sperm; women vest great energy in creating eggs and especially infants. Human biology designates mothers as the primary caretaker, so they’re the ones who have to be hookable on the level of nurturing. The social aspects may work with or against that, and individual women may fall anywhere on the scale.

              • It seems like that minimizes the nurturing tendencies of men in society – fatherhood and supporting one’s children do exist to match motherhood, if you see what I mean. Men investing minimal energy in creating sperm would imply we worked like tigers or bears, mating and then the father wandering off his merry way, pausing to kill the offspring of other male bears on occasion.

                • Humans have a range of paternal expression. Biologically speaking, a human woman is capable of raising a human infant without male assistance, although the survival odds are higher if the father does participate. Contrast this with, say, seahorses where the male gestates the young inside his body, or with penguins where both parents are required at different stages of care. I am increasingly displeased with the familial fragmentation that I see in contemporary society, where more and more people seem to make babies and then make tracks. It isn’t even just the men; women will take the baby with them, usually, but they often don’t give a flip about the relationship that made it.

                  • Anthropologically speaking, male/female marriages are the commonest expression of human sexuality, in my understanding. Or one male and multiple women. I know that in some cultures a sire doesn’t have a parental relationship to the child, and the parental male is the mother’s brother, thus assuring a blood relationship between child and parent. I consider familial fragmentation predictable, as society takes on the family’s safety net role. Instead of holding on tight to a parent/child/husband/wife, you go, ‘okay, I will support via social programs all parents, all children, and everyone’s husband/wife.’ Thus, medicare/SS to care for aging parents so the ones with bad relationships with their children don’t end up resourceless, programs to feed poor children, social safety nets to support single adults in times of sickness and strife. We’re all tied together in general more, and it seems to me that being tied together specificially to one other person /less/ is the natural outcome of that generalizing.

                    • >>I consider familial fragmentation predictable, as society takes on the family’s safety net role. << The problems with that are: 1) Social safety nets work best as backup, not everyday living space. They are less effective than having a family. 2) People don't want to fund the social safety nets, and are now shredding what there is of them.

                    • 1) Agreed. Which leads into 2) I would disagree, here. People don’t want to go back to the days when little old ladies died of starvation, men waited in bread lines on corners, and we all died of Smallpox and Polio. The United States (I believe we share a country) is engaging in a long-term argument about the shape and size of our safety nets, but the majority comfortably supports them existing. If, however, your point was that people want social safety nets to exist without having to pay for them, instead having someone else pay for them – definitely agreed. I think that it’s a comfortable and common failing to say ‘not in my back yard / tax bill.’

                    • >>People don’t want to go back to the days when little old ladies died of starvation, men waited in bread lines on corners, and we all died of Smallpox and Polio. The United States (I believe we share a country) is engaging in a long-term argument about the shape and size of our safety nets, but the majority comfortably supports them existing. << Some people do not care if other human beings are harmed or killed, so long as they get what they want. This stance is spreading, and that’s a problem. Yes, a majority of people want social safety nets. Regrettably those people aren’t making the decisions. The decisions are being made by a small number of wealthy, powerful people whose interests are largely selfish. They’ll dole out only enough benefits as they believe will suffice to keep the peasants from sacking the castle. This is neither humane nor sustainable.

                    • It seems you and I disagree rather strongly on the health of democracy as an institution in the USA. I remain relatively optimistic about grassroots activism and populism as a force for controlling the course of our society.

                    • I’m looking at the results in terms of government action. Right now, citizens are expressing their opinions and politicians are blithely doing the opposite, more often than not. There are some wins, but overall, we’re losing ground in terms of quality of life and civil rights.

                    • Could you elaborate? From what I can tell, after the 2010 elections when the Republicans won back half of Congress, splitting the federal government roughly evenly between the two parties, we entered into a predictable and democratic state of deadlock. That is, the Democrats aren’t getting very much done because they haven’t succeeded in winning the elections they need to get that stuff done. The right-wing types who have been expressing their opinions in the public sphere are being represented firmly in Congress. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but I wouldn’t say it’s the fault of corporate lobbyists, either.

  2. A strong character or a memorable character or a character who was right for the story? Years ago I read Desmond Bagley’s”The Tightrope Men”. The admittedly male lead character doesn’t sound like a strong character on paper but even some of his weaknesses were useful in the events that he found himslef in. Perhaps one definition of a strong character is one who makes the best fist she or he can of the circumstances in which they find themselves.

  3. I think the new era of “strong female characters” actually missed the point for me. The strength I care about is moral, emotional and spiritual. The strength so many writers seem to be rushing to address is physical and situational. I prefer my male characters also to have this kind of strength. Fancy that. 🙂

    • Yes, I agree completely. Forget lifting tall buildings, I want to know how they deal when they want to cry, they have cramps, and the world still needs saving.

      • Also, the whole trope of the urban fantasy narrator who deals with her intimacy issues with avoidance and snark, is fine handling guns but has issues holding babies, can have casual sex at the drop of the hat but can’t seem to sustain a normal friendship with another woman… is not what I perceive as “strong.” :,

            • Ah yes, the Strong Female Character, who is strong because she can act like the kind of emotionally pathetic guy who I suspect most people of any gender would prefer not to spend much time around. Buffy I could picture spending a day with (with one hand always near a stake, just in case); the Kara Thrace type I think I would try to minimize my time around (of course it doesn’t help that it looks like she gleefully got falling down and violent drunk even before the Cylon apocalypse. (Reminding me of a webcomic I ran across the other day in which a character told a story that ended with a somewhat Aesopian piece, in which the ‘Strong Man’ cries that another is at fault for his losing people’s respect and the other answering, “No one ever admired you. They were only too afraid to say so.”)

        • This bunch of issues did make my list, sprawled across several points. I don’t like the relationships drawn for most SFCs. And Strong Male Characters rarely fare much better. It’s like people think being strong rules out the possibility of emotional/relational intelligence. *ponder* I rarely center this in a storyline, because I tend to take it as a given. But if you look, it’s there. The women in Monster House tend to have solid relationships, and so does Druga in The Odd Trio. It just drives me batty when a capable hera winds up in horrible relationships with men who I wouldn’t give more than an “I’m sorry, I only date people with an IQ in positive integers.”

          • It just drives me batty when a capable hera winds up in horrible relationships with men who I wouldn’t give more than an “I’m sorry, I only date people with an IQ in positive integers.” Me, too (been there, done that)… but I think it makes for good story if handled correctly.

            • I rarely see that motif done well enough that I really enjoy it. Most of the time I just want to yell at the hera, “Agh! He’s a jerk! Dump him already and find someone who doesn’t make my eyeballs itch.”

    • Okay, those are good points. I must say that I am intrigued by them also, although they didn’t leap to the front of my mind when I made my list. Looking at your points, you just nailed what I like most about Shahana and Ari in “Path of the Paladins.” And your Spots, too.

      • I am impressed by Shahana’s emotional/spiritual maturity, yes. More like that, I’d like to see, in both male and female characters.

        • Yay! I’m in the process of updating the Serial Poetry page to show the “Path of the Paladins” poems that haven’t been sponsored yet, so more is available. I’ll keep an eye on this cluster of character traits, now that you’ve brought it to my attention, and see if anything else pops up.

  4. Someone who is important because of who she and what she does (whatever that is), rather than because she’s the daughter, love interest or mother of a more important male character. Someone who has her own opinion, makes her own decisions, and whose decisions are part of what shapes the plot.

    • Someone who is important because of who she [is]. . . rather than because she’s the daughter, love interest or mother of a more important male character. Agreed and amen. I like this ideal in Strong Yet Not Primary Female Characters, too. And in those who are important in their own right and not just because they’re of some relation to a primary female character. 🙂

    • I quite like the ones where she decides she’s had enough of ‘just’ being the daughter, love interest or mother of a more important character. I really enjoyed a book where the heroine decided at the beginning of the book that she was tired of being the dutiful daughter, dutiful widow, dutiful mother (of an adult daughter) and victim.

  5. One important point for me is that she not see herself as being in constant competition with the men. She is confident enough in her own abilities that she has no need to belittle the other characters when they need her help, and does not feel diminished by accepting theirs, even if they happen to be male.

Leave a Reply to cluudle Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *