Male as the assumed default.

strobe

pickarooney wrote: »

I imagine George Sand fooled a lot of first-time readers too. I wonder how many men are writing romantic fiction under female pseudonyms.

I have heard of several male authors being advised to use only initials (so gender neutral rather than female I guess) rather than their first name on a few occasions alright when writing for romance fiction mills like Harlequin. It's apparently standard practice.

In terms of explicitly female pen names wiki throws up this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Male_authors_who_wrote_under_female_pseudonyms . Not all romance though, it's as diverse as children's books, gay literature and ehhh.... white supremacist propoganda...

krudler

Mallei wrote: »

I also think most men simply find strong female characters threatening and dismiss them out of hand. It's easier to have a strong male lead because "men want to be him and women want to be with him", but that's a separate issue.

Not really, I watch a lot of movies and would love to see more main female characters who arent of the romcom or damsel in distress variety, your Ripley's, Sarah Connor's etc. Same as video games, more good female characters and less overly sexualised ones, the new Tomb Raider game has a much made over Lara Croft, now shes in her early 20's and more natural looking as opposed to the titanic chested Lara of old.

Logical Fallacy

krudler wrote: »

Not really, I watch a lot of movies and would love to see more main female characters who arent of the romcom or damsel in distress variety, your Ripley's, Sarah Connor's etc. Same as video games, more good female characters and less overly sexualised ones, the new Tomb Raider game has a much made over Lara Croft, now shes in her early 20's and more natural looking as opposed to the titanic chested Lara of old.

Science fiction, fantasy, anime and the like all seem to give female characters a fairer shake of the stick, especially since around the mid to late 70's.

Which is probably why i like them so much to be honest.

iguana

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Science fiction, fantasy, anime and the like all seem to give female characters a fairer shake of the stick, especially since around the mid to late 70's.

Which is probably why i like them so much to be honest.

Definitely true, imo. In the 60s comic books certainly suffered from what the writer of the article calls "Smurfs." The X-men had Charles, Scott, Warren, Hank, Bobby and Jean. The Fantastic Four were Reed, Ben, Johnny and Sue. The Avengers were Steve, Hank, Tony, Thor and Jan. Even the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants were Erik, Jason, Mortimer, Pietro and Wanda. All of the women had crappy use of their powers and were usually the weakest on their team only ever fighting the token female villains.

Into the late 60 and 70s this was well shaken up with more female heroes being introduced into the groups, so there was no longer just one women per team and in fact the female friendships became an important factor of the stories. Lorna, Ororo, Kitty, Alison joined the X-men. Crystal, Medusa and even Agnes Harkness were brought into the Fantastic Four (although only as alternates or associates due to the team having the number 4 in their name.) Wanda, Natalia, Carol, Mandy and Patricia all joined the Avenger. The women's powers increased exponentially and they were not only made central to the storylines but often were the catalyst and centre of long strong arcs and the hero of many battles. And by the 80s and 90s many of the teams regularly had more female characters than male.

It's just a pity that Star Trek couldn't have kept it's original characters from it's pilot. Number One was an unbelievably strong, powerful female character for 1963. But apparently NBC didn't think housewives would warm to such a strong woman on tv. (Star Trek was aimed at housewives? ) Although NBC's retconning of the situation is that they didn't want to put the married producer's known mistress into a lead role, so she had to go be a lame nurse, who was actually a scientist but took on a nurses role to join Starfleet and search for her missing lover who she quickly forgot as she was making goo-goo eyes at Spock, instead. And Rodenberry just started screwing the Smurfette of Star Trek instead.:pac:

Bottle_of_Smoke

This is something that's always bothered me. If a man goes to a doctor (female or male) with a male problem, he's seen to and dealt with. If a woman goes to the same doctor with a female problem, she's referred to a speciality "woman's" clinic. A man and his sexual organs are the "norm", a woman and hers must be sent to a special place for women. A case in point - a normal GP will deal with giving a man a vasectomy; a woman must go to a special woman's clinic for the mirena.

Is that really true? All GPs will do a breast check/smear test/proscribe the pill etc. MAy the other woman problems require specific equipment not stocked by GPs. Women's reproductive system harder to deal with because its inside the body.

metrovelvet

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Is that really true? All GPs will do a breast check/smear test/proscribe the pill etc. MAy the other woman problems require specific equipment not stocked by GPs. Women's reproductive system harder to deal with because its inside the body.

Well yes in Ireland the GPs office will do the smear, my GPs office wont do a breast check. In fact they said it was pointless. YES THATS RIGHT. THEY DONT DO THEM.

How can a GP do a vasctomy? Dont you need a urologist for that?

In the US you go to your gyne for that stuff. But the men would also go to a uroologist for prostate stuff, etc. I dont know where they go for their family jewel checks. I guess the urologist too.

Morag

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Is that really true? All GPs will do a breast check/smear test/proscribe the pill etc. MAy the other woman problems require specific equipment not stocked by GPs. Women's reproductive system harder to deal with because its inside the body.

Given that contraception was illegal until 1984, dealing with a woman's reproductive systems was something most GP did not do, it was optional so most never bothered with it, which is why we had to have ifpa and well woman clinics. There are still some of the older drs who are of that generation who have practices down the country. Not all GPs will do smear tests either.

Still the number of gps who just are not up to date with all the current types of contraception is farcical, there are women going in to ask about the nuvaring the d had never hear of it.

Morag

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Science fiction, fantasy, anime and the like all seem to give female characters a fairer shake of the stick, especially since around the mid to late 70's.

Which is probably why i like them so much to be honest.

What happened in the 60and 70 was that Del Ray books who were owned and run equally by a husband and wife team and Ballantine Books who was also ran by a husband and wife team, started publishing books in those genre by women.

There was a lot of women writers in those genre's being published but that has not followed through to today, indeed there was a backlash.

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/02/books/women-and-science-fiction.html

WOMEN AND SCIENCE FICTION
By SUSAN SCHWARTZ; Susan Schwartz is a science fiction writer whose stories have appeared in ''Analog'' and the editor of ''Hecate's Cauldron,'' an anthology of fanatasy.
Published: May 2, 1982

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LAST fall science fiction writers and fans attending the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver awarded Joan Vinge the Hugo for her novel ''The Snow Queen.'' Suzy McKee Charnas won the 1981 Nebula, sponsored by the Science Fiction Writers of America, for her novel ''The Vampire Tapestries.'' That women won these awards, which are the Pulitzers and American Book Awards of the thriving science fiction community, bolsters a claim made by Alexei and Cory Panshin in ''Expanded Universe,'' a collection of critical essays about the genre: For the six or seven major male science fiction writers who emerged during the 70's, there are at least 15 or 20 women. ''The best writers are the women,'' declares Harlan Ellison, the controversial writer and editor of ''Dangerous Visions,'' a multivolume anthology of science fiction.

This hasn't always been the case. During the 30's and 40's, the few women who wrote science fiction often published under androgynous or frankly male pseudonyms - C.L. Moore, Wilmar Shiras and Leigh Brackett Hamilton, whose last credit before her death was the script for ''The Empire Strikes Back'' (in collaboration with Laurence Kasdan). In the 40's and 50's, these women were joined by Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley and others.

By the early 60's so many women had entered the field that aficionados liked to boast that sf had conquered sexism. Ursula Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, Joanna Russ and Kate Wilhelm brazenly published under feminine first names, and science fiction fans, traditionally a vociferous lot, didn't seem to mind -most of the time. In 1968 Anne McCaffrey became the first woman to win a Hugo, with her novella ''Weyr Search.'' Two years later she won a Nebula. In 1969 the first of Ursula Le Guin's major novels, ''The Left Hand of Darkness,'' won both the Hugo and the Nebula - tying the record of Frank Herbert's epic ''Dune.'' But 1969 was also the year that Playboy asked UrsulaLe Guin for permission to run ''Nine Lives'' (her story of love, clones and extraterrestrial mining) under the byline ''U.K. Le Guin'' because, as a Playboy editor put it, ''Many of our readers are frightened by stories by women authors.''

About the same time, author James Tiptree began to win Hugos and Nebulas for short, psychologically gripping and horrific stories like ''The Women Men Don't See.'' Science fiction fans and writers admired Tiptree's adventurous life, which included a childhood in India and Africa as well as wartime security work in Washington. ''There is to me something ineluctably masculine about the work of Tiptree,'' a male author proclaimed in an introduction to Tiptree's collected stories. And Theodore Sturgeon hailed Tiptree as the male equivalent of the new female talents. In 1977, however, to mingled consternation and glee, Tiptree announced that she was actually Dr. Alice Sheldon, a research psychologist who had indeed spent her childhood in India and Africa and worked in the Pentagon during World War II.

THERE is, of course, a certain degree of backlash. Although Ben Bova was the editor who devised the all-female issue of Analog in 1977 before taking over at Omni, he nevertheless issued a strong attack upon woman sf writers in a 1980 speech at a Philadelphia convention: ''Neither as writers nor as readers have you raised the level of science fiction a notch. Women have written a lot of books about dragons and unicorns, but damned few about future worlds in which adult problems are addressed.'' Richard Geis, editor of the small-press magazine SFR, protests that ''there must be a recognition of the emotional needs in fiction of the insecure young male who has made up the bedrock readership of SF for 50 years.''

Richard Geis reflects the attitudes of somewhat embattled male fans and writers who seem bent on clinging to science fiction as it used to be - gadgets, violence and no girls allowed on the spaceship's bridge. Their suspicions were spoken by a brave 9-year-old boy who asked the members of a Lunacon panel, ''Are all you women trying to get vengeance on the men?'' ''Not anymore,'' dystopian writer Suzy McKee Charnas told him. ''I wrote that out of my system.'' Her catharsis took the form of ''Motherlines,'' a novel in which the male characters were what she has called ''Nixonian men'' whose oppression of women drew cries of outrage from male and female readers alike.

So, if they don't want vengeance, and they've earned their place in the science fiction sun - or suns - what more do women in the field want? First and foremost, they want to go on writing what they enjoy and to pass it on to younger writers -hence their participation in writers' workshops like Clarion at Michigan State or the less formal sessions at weekend conventions.

''After all,'' says Marion Zimmer Bradley, ''I have to have things to read when I retire.'' Writers like Bradley and her protegees want to transform science fiction into a genre that fuses the arts and social sciences with futurology. After all, there is no reason why literary style and technology cannot coexist, or why sf must be kept in literary quarantine.

''The sf writer,'' says Ursula Le Guin, ''really should be aware that he or she is in an extraordinary, enviable position: an inheritor of the least rigid, freest, youngest of all literary traditions.''

Meanwhile, it would be very nice if publishers would stop plastering book jackets with baroquely futuristic artillery, lecherous aliens and women in those large bronze bras.

That was written 30 years ago and all the ground gained was lost.
Most of those authors are on my bookshelves I grew up reading them along side Ray Bradbury, Harry Harrison, Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein. But the next generation after all those women just never seemed to happen.


As for comics and how female chars are treated well
The Women in Refrigerators says it all. The comic book industry is dominated by men and mostly straight male writers and women are plot devices.

iguana

Sharrow wrote: »

As for comics and how female chars are treated well
The Women in Refrigerators says it all. The comic book industry is dominated by men and mostly straight male writers and women are plot devices.

I don't think that website does say it all, tbh. If you put a list of male characters and list what awful things have happened to them in the 50 years many of them have existed it's equally horrific. Superheroes are essentially combat soldiers if you decide to tell stories about a fictional group of combat soldiers for several decades they will all eventually experience torture, murder, severe assault, loss of loved ones and many will be crippled or killed. So yes horrible things happen to the female heroes, but equally bad things happen to the males. Gail Simone took a very selective sample of information and made it fit her point.

Morag

Gail Simone answered that.

Several respondents mentioned that male superheroes ALSO get beat up, cut up, and killed up-an undeniable truth, I say. However, it's my feeling that a) the percentages are off. If there are only 50 major female superheroes, and 40 of them get killed/maimed/depowered, then that's more significant numerically than if 40 male characters get killed, since there are many times more of them total.

And b) I can't quite shake the feeling that male characters tend to die differently than female ones. The male characters seem to die nobly, as heroes, most often, whereas it's not uncommon, as in Katma Tui's case, for a male character to just come home and find her butchered in the kitchen. There are exceptions for both sexes, of course, but shock value seems to be a major motivator in the superchick deaths more often than not.

It got me to wondering, honestly, why it was OK, or even encouraged somewhat, to kill women, more than men, statistically.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Mallei wrote: »

Men are scared of strong women because they threaten the status quo of the patriarchal society we live in. That's not up for debate, surely?

I would say it is up for debate/discussion. imo patriarchal society only truly benefits a privileged charismatic alpha male minority of males. and can think of other reasons some men could be intimidated by "strong" women too. maybe a discussion for a new thread though.

LeeHoffmann

I think the vast majority of men in our corner of the world aren't bothered by strong women at all. Really hasn't been my experience

Mallei

Even in science fiction and fantasy (supposedly "enlightened" genres), there is a terrible lack of strong female characters. Aside from the leads of each series - where there are no female leads of note - we can look at the other main characters.

Women are either absent, token, or fundamentally flawed in some way. Star Trek has had only one female captain in five different series, and she was widely pilloried by the Star Trek community at the start. Beyond that, her second-in-command is still a man; no series have a female captain and a female second-in-command, plenty have both characters being male.

Looking further afield, the only fantasy or television series with a female lead of note was Buffy. Joss Whedon deserves credit for that, but even then they felt they had to cast a gorgeous woman in the lead role, because the only reason men would watch the show if it had a female lead is if they wanted to **** her.

In books, the most famous fantasy novels feature female characters, but they're all either broken in some way or desperately trying to live up to masculine tropes. The women in the Wheel of Time series are either unreasonable, emotionally unstable witches (Nynaeve / Egwene), or cold-hearted bitches who'll manipulate anything in their reach (any Aes Sedai). The women in A Song of Ice and Fire seem to exist purely for Martin to take out his rape fantasies on, and there are no women of note in the Lord of the Rings bar Eowyn who has to pretend to be a boy for us to take her seriously. In Harry Potter, Hermione is bookish and annoying, and certainly the least amicable of the three main characters, and Ginny is constantly doing stupid things that get her into trouble - from which the boys Harry and Ron must save her.

The comicbook character point has already been raised, so I won't go over that except to echo the sentiments posted above - that the women are token characters who almost always end up getting killed / raped / depowered in some horrible way so as to teach them a lesson that they shouldn't be trying to mix it with the men.

Someone used the example of anime, and this is the most amusing of all. The female characters in Japanese fiction are almost always tomboys or insane, and often both. They are also always hugely-chested and often skimpily-dressed - there can be no doubt they are there for the benefit of the predominantly male audience to stare at and jerk off to, not to make them reconsider their stance on women or to attract a female audience.

And finally, any book or series that does come out with a female lead or at least strong female characters immediately gets lumped in as "women's fiction" and is then steadfastly ignored by the mainstream media in favour of fiction with a bunch of strong men dominating the world.

LeeHoffmann

...are you trying to prove that men are afraid of strong women because of how women are under-represented and mis-represented in books? What about IRL? Does anyone actually feel like the men around them are afraid of strong women?

krudler

Mallei wrote: »

Even in science fiction and fantasy (supposedly "enlightened" genres), there is a terrible lack of strong female characters. Aside from the leads of each series - where there are no female leads of note - we can look at the other main characters.

Women are either absent, token, or fundamentally flawed in some way. Star Trek has had only one female captain in five different series, and she was widely pilloried by the Star Trek community at the start. Beyond that, her second-in-command is still a man; no series have a female captain and a female second-in-command, plenty have both characters being male.

Looking further afield, the only fantasy or television series with a female lead of note was Buffy. Joss Whedon deserves credit for that, but even then they felt they had to cast a gorgeous woman in the lead role, because the only reason men would watch the show if it had a female lead is if they wanted to **** her.

In books, the most famous fantasy novels feature female characters, but they're all either broken in some way or desperately trying to live up to masculine tropes. The women in the Wheel of Time series are either unreasonable, emotionally unstable witches (Nynaeve / Egwene), or cold-hearted bitches who'll manipulate anything in their reach (any Aes Sedai). The women in A Song of Ice and Fire seem to exist purely for Martin to take out his rape fantasies on, and there are no women of note in the Lord of the Rings bar Eowyn who has to pretend to be a boy for us to take her seriously. In Harry Potter, Hermione is bookish and annoying, and certainly the least amicable of the three main characters, and Ginny is constantly doing stupid things that get her into trouble - from which the boys Harry and Ron must save her.

The comicbook character point has already been raised, so I won't go over that except to echo the sentiments posted above - that the women are token characters who almost always end up getting killed / raped / depowered in some horrible way so as to teach them a lesson that they shouldn't be trying to mix it with the men.

Someone used the example of anime, and this is the most amusing of all. The female characters in Japanese fiction are almost always tomboys or insane, and often both. They are also always hugely-chested and often skimpily-dressed - there can be no doubt they are there for the benefit of the predominantly male audience to stare at and jerk off to, not to make them reconsider their stance on women or to attract a female audience.

And finally, any book or series that does come out with a female lead or at least strong female characters immediately gets lumped in as "women's fiction" and is then steadfastly ignored by the mainstream media in favour of fiction with a bunch of strong men dominating the world.

so women shouldnt be written as flawed characters? is it more annoying to have a woman who's a token character who doesnt do much, or a woman who actually has something to do any makes mistakes in the case of Hermione in Harry Potter? the Ginny being rescued point is kinda moot considering Harry gets help from the other characters in every single book, he even points that out himself in Order of the Phoenix that he had help in any situation he finds himself in and rarely does anything without being led by another character.

Mallei

Mallei wrote: »

Even in science fiction and fantasy (supposedly "enlightened" genres), there is a terrible lack of strong female characters. Aside from the leads of each series - where there are no female leads of note - we can look at the other main characters.

That's not even remotely true. My favourite authors have female leads in their fantasy series, and my favourite scifi certainly has some as well.

The rest of your post is a load of waffle.
Though everyone does know Jordan's women are irritating as hell.

LittleBook

krudler wrote: »

so women shouldnt be written as flawed characters? is it more annoying to have a woman who's a token character who doesnt do much, or a woman who actually has something to do any makes mistakes in the case of Hermione in Harry Potter? the Ginny being rescued point is kinda moot considering Harry gets help from the other characters in every single book, he even points that out himself in Order of the Phoenix that he had help in any situation he finds himself in and rarely does anything without being led by another character.

I always thought Harry was the annoying character, particularly as they grew older and he got all whiney and "oh woe is me". Even before she developed into a tougher character in the later books, Hermione was the glue that held the friendship together and saved everyone's ass with her smarts more often than anyone else.

pickarooney

Mallei wrote: »

Looking further afield, the only fantasy or television series with a female lead of note was Buffy. Joss Whedon deserves credit for that, but even then they felt they had to cast a gorgeous woman in the lead role, because the only reason men would watch the show if it had a female lead is if they wanted to **** her.

I'd agree with most of your post but this is just plain wrong (unless you accidentally skipped an adjective before 'television'). Besides, it's not as though casting directors make a habit of hiring the buck-ugly on a regular basis.

In only the last three days I've watched episodes of Nurse Jackie, True Blood, United States of Tara, Weeds and several shows with ensemble casts where men and women share top billing (yeah, I know I watch too much TV, but it's either that or sleep!). With all due respect to Edie Falco and Toni Collette, they're neither of them gorgeous and personally I find Anna Paquin quite ugly. Mary Louise Parker is still stunning but surely it's not exactly a problem that at 46, on top of being a highly talented and versatile actress, she's also smoking hot?

Most of what you say about Game of Thrones is true although, while I haven't read the books, Arya seems to be in everybody's top two favourite characters from the TV series (and yes I know

she has to pretend to be a boy!)

.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Mallei you have to remember we're living in a free market not a communist state. People are using male characters presumedly because they pull in a bigger audience.

There are exceptions or course, Roald Dahl as previously mentioned. The twilight series main character is female and a heroic character (i think)

And finally, any book or series that does come out with a female lead or at least strong female characters immediately gets lumped in as "women's fiction" and is then steadfastly ignored by the mainstream media in favour of fiction with a bunch of strong men dominating the world.

By "lumped in" it kind of seems you are suggesting the various media are putting men off consuming products like films/books/tv. A much simpler explanation seems to me that men have little interest in them so they're referred to as "women's fiction"

The problem is men in groups are dicks about this kind of thing. Take "sex and the city" - its a very funny show, which shows scenarios and plots which affect men as much as women. In terms of girliness its really just an over-18s version of friends.

Yet, say this to virtually any group of guys and you'll immediately get shrieks of "what a stupid show, its trying to represent women as unrealistic characters" Though it actually does nothing of the sort, its just a show about 4 friends who happen to be well off successful women. Many women would also mock a guy for watching it unless he's gay.

Now its obviously a complete crock of sh*t, there's no way men and women are so different that there would be a show that is immensely popular among women but men have no interest. In a way the fact gay men watch these shows prove this. The difference is not that they're women, they simply won't be laughed at over it.

There's no real equivelent as far as I know among female groups. So from an author/film producer/tv executive point of view, it makes sense to have male leads, because that doesn't put off either gender from watching.

Mallei

LeeHoffmann wrote: »

...are you trying to prove that men are afraid of strong women because of how women are under-represented and mis-represented in books? What about IRL? Does anyone actually feel like the men around them are afraid of strong women?

No, we established I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek there and moved back to the main topic of the thread.

krudler wrote: »

so women shouldnt be written as flawed characters? is it more annoying to have a woman who's a token character who doesnt do much, or a woman who actually has something to do any makes mistakes in the case of Hermione in Harry Potter? the Ginny being rescued point is kinda moot considering Harry gets help from the other characters in every single book, he even points that out himself in Order of the Phoenix that he had help in any situation he finds himself in and rarely does anything without being led by another character.

No, women should be written as normal human beings, like the men. But it gets very irritating to see the women painted as flawed or broken whilst the men run around being the heroes of the story. And just because the Ginny point proves you wrong it doesn't suddenly make it moot.

bluewolf wrote: »

That's not even remotely true. My favourite authors have female leads in their fantasy series, and my favourite scifi certainly has some as well.

The rest of your post is a load of waffle.
Though everyone does know Jordan's women are irritating as hell.

And your favourite science fiction and fantasy are likely books that have never won awards, never been critically acclaimed and never hit the mainstream. I'm not saying books like that don't exist, but that they never do as well as books where the female characters are either absent or broken and have male leads. I'm sure if you posted a list of your favourite books with strong female characters - which you like because you're a woman, no doubt - most casual fantasy and science fiction readers would never have heard of them.

pickarooney

What normal human being doesn't have flaws? Who in their right mind would want to read about or watch a character with no major flaws or weaknesses?

It's actually a little hard to tell at this stage which of your posts are to be taken at face value and which are tongue-in-cheek.

Mallei

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Mallei you have to remember we're living in a free market not a communist state. People are using male characters presumedly because they pull in a bigger audience.

There are exceptions or course, Roald Dahl as previously mentioned. The twilight series main character is female and a heroic character (i think)

By "lumped in" it kind of seems you are suggesting the various media are putting men off consuming products like films/books/tv. A much simpler explanation seems to me that men have little interest in them so they're referred to as "women's fiction"

The problem is men in groups are dicks about this kind of thing. Take "sex and the city" - its a very funny show, which shows scenarios and plots which affect men as much as women. In terms of girliness its really just an over-18s version of friends.

Yet, say this to virtually any group of guys and you'll immediately get shrieks of "what a stupid show, its trying to represent women as unrealistic characters" Though it actually does nothing of the sort, its just a show about 4 friends who happen to be well off successful women. Many women would also mock a guy for watching it unless he's gay.

Now its obviously a complete crock of sh*t, there's no way men and women are so different that there would be a show that is immensely popular among women but men have no interest. In a way the fact gay men watch these shows prove this. The difference is not that they're women, they simply won't be laughed at over it.

There's no real equivelent as far as I know among female groups. So from an author/film producer/tv executive point of view, it makes sense to have male leads, because that doesn't put off either gender from watching.

Well... that's kind of my point. I'm not blaming the authors and producers for a lack of strong female characters so much as a society which refuses to accept them. I'm sure Joanne Rowling would have loved to write a female main character, but she knew damn well she wouldn't have got a publishing deal because the publishers want to make money, and they make money on male leads.

Also, the Twilight series is very much a "girl's series".

Bottle_of_Smoke

Mallei wrote: »

Well... that's kind of my point. I'm not blaming the authors and producers for a lack of strong female characters so much as a society which refuses to accept them. I'm sure Joanne Rowling would have loved to write a female main character, but she knew damn well she wouldn't have got a publishing deal because the publishers want to make money, and they make money on male leads.

Also, the Twilight series is very much a "girl's series".

Fair enough, but you should be aware it really comes across in your posts that you do blame the authors/industries.

Mallei

pickarooney wrote: »

What normal human being doesn't have flaws? Who in their right mind would want to read about or watch a character with no major flaws or weaknesses?

It's actually a little hard to tell at this stage which of your posts are to be taken at face value and which are tongue-in-cheek.

Yes, but there's a difference between being flawed and heroic (as the men are - their heroism comes from conquering those flaws) and flawed and broken (as the women tend to be - until they realise they love the male hero, of course).

of course people have heard of feist, kerr, elliott, hobb, peter hamilton... :rolleyes:
hell, you could even add in maggie furey and trudi canavan, though i don't like their writing as much, and anne mccaffrey is well known
and while eddings' characters are irritating, i think "strong" would also be an apt description :pac:
and modesitt's spellsong books

anyway, I could go on at length here, but I'll leave it at that

elekid

Interesting thread, I'm another who always assumed that men would default to male and women would default to female in cases of unknown gender. I would love to see more strong female leads in movies, tv and games (though Pixar's upcoming "Brave" looks to feature their first female protagonist).

The original Metroid game is a good example of people assuming male as the default, only to be surprised at the end when the tough female bounty hunter they were playing as turned out to be a woman (making it all the more disappointing that one of the "rewards" for completing the game fast enough is seeing her in her pixellated underwear :rolleyes:)

The whole thing reminds me of the Bechdel Test

The Bechdel Test, Bechdel-Wallace Test, or the Mo Movie Measure is a sort of litmus test for female presence in movies and TV. The test is named for Alison Bechdel, creator of the comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For, who made it known to the world with this strip.

In order to pass, the film or show must meet the following criteria:
1. it includes at least two women (some make the addendum that the women must be named characters)
2. who have at least one conversation...
3. about something other than a man or men.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Another good example would be Silence of the lambs by Thomas Harris - hugely successful, won awards and is critically acclaimed. And the Clarice Starling in the book is a stronger more confident character than the Clarice portrayed in the film. In fact the portrayal of Clarice in the film Hannibal by Julianne Moores was a lot closer to the book.

pickarooney

Mallei wrote: »

Yes, but there's a difference between being flawed and heroic (as the men are - their heroism comes from conquering those flaws) and flawed and broken (as the women tend to be - until they realise they love the male hero, of course).

Fair enough. I don't read comics so I don't really know what characters you're talking about.

How about the Millenium series? I haven't read any of them, but I noticed the titles were all changed in English to include the words The Girl Who...

Why do you think they did that? (not a rhetorical question)

krudler

Mallei wrote: »

Well... that's kind of my point. I'm not blaming the authors and producers for a lack of strong female characters so much as a society which refuses to accept them. I'm sure Joanne Rowling would have loved to write a female main character, but she knew damn well she wouldn't have got a publishing deal because the publishers want to make money, and they make money on male leads.

Also, the Twilight series is very much a "girl's series".

sooo, a series written by a woman, with a female lead, primarily read by women and a massive worldwide success...is bad?

christ on a bike, "damned if you do and damned if you don't" springs to mind.

so you want strong female leads, who arent flawed therefore are unrealistic, but not token women who don't haven anything interesting to do but should have them to offset the balance of male characters?

LeeHoffmann

No, we established I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek there and moved back to the main topic of the thread.

I was responding to one of your subsequent posts (number 74). I didn't get what the point was you were trying to make, hence the question. Should I just read all your posts on this topic as tongue-in-cheek?