# Too few female characters?



## Trick

I recently started thinking about this after some diversity discussions here and reading sexism posts. My MC is male. So is my secondary POV character. And so is everyone else who features prominently in the story except the MC's mother and sister. The former dies about halfway through (hugely important to the plot) and the latter is a toddler in the first half and nearly comatose in the second half. The sister will feature very prominently in the second book but that doesn't deal with the current issue. 

Will people be offended by the lack of female characters? It was not intentional. This book has a very small scope when it comes to characters and there isn't really any room for new characters. I hate to swap sexes of characters just to appease people but I also don't want to cause undue offence. 

Please help!


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## Jabrosky

Trick said:


> I recently started thinking about this after some diversity discussions here and reading sexism posts. My MC is male. So is my secondary POV character. And so is everyone else who features prominently in the story except the MC's mother and sister. The former dies about halfway through (hugely important to the plot) and the latter is a toddler in the first half and nearly comatose in the second half. The sister will feature very prominently in the second book but that doesn't deal with the current issue.
> 
> Will people be offended by the lack of female characters? It was not intentional. This book has a very small scope when it comes to characters and there isn't really any room for new characters. I hate to swap sexes of characters just to appease people but I also don't want to cause undue offence.
> 
> Please help!


I would say it depends on your setting's gender roles. If you have the standard patriarchal society modeled after a certain historical time period, then assuming your character is in a traditionally "masculine" line of work, it would make sense for most of the people they rub shoulders with to be male. A society with more fluid gender roles would probably have a more even mix in most scenarios.


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## Gryphos

Personally, I think you should change one of your characters to be female. Obviously you don't have to. No writer is ever forced to do anything. However, what I like to say in situations like this is, why wouldn't you want to have a female character in there?


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## Svrtnsse

I think it's something worth considering, but I think that in the end what's important is that you write your story in a way that you're comfortable with.

I know I just recently changed a very minor detail of my story from female to male, but I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be with swapping the gender of a major character. It would require a fair bit of reworking of that character as well as all of the others to fit that into the social dynamics of the group. 
Changing gender of a character isn't as easy as just adding an _s_ before _he_.

Also, I don't think people will be _offended _that there aren't any female characters, but your story might have a harder time appealing to some readers.


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## Graylorne

I think we worry too much. Just write the book and don't try to make artificial changes just because. As long as the female roles you have are solid in their own parts, with their own lives, thoughts and purposes, that's enough.


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## Chessie

Svrt said it perfectly, but I'd like to second his suggestion to write what you feel comfortable with. Will this be the only story you write? No. So include more females in the next one.


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## Trick

Jabrosky said:


> I would say it depends on your setting's gender roles. If you have the standard patriarchal society modeled after a certain historical time period, then assuming your character is in a traditionally "masculine" line of work, it would make sense for most of the people they rub shoulders with to be male.



It is patriarchal and he is a thief. The funny thing is, the thief crew he is a part of has three women on it but they don't really factor into the story. They might later, in the second half after the MC gets out of prison. I suppose I could add that to my outline instead of hoping it just happens (I outline/discovery write about 50/50).



Gryphos said:


> Personally, I think you should change one of your characters to be female. Obviously you don't have to. No writer is ever forced to do anything. However, what I like to say in situations like this is, why wouldn't you want to have a female character in there?



It has nothing to do with not wanting a female character. I'm actually really looking forward to writing in his sister's POV in the next book. As I said, I outline/discovery write about 50/50. I didn't plan most of the side characters and they simply seemed to grow out of the end of my pen. I don't want to switch a character, but I wouldn't mind giving an existing female character more of a role. One of the thieves is pretty interesting. 



Svrtnsse said:


> Changing gender of a character isn't as easy as just adding an _s_ before _he_.
> 
> Also, I don't think people will be _offended _that there aren't any female characters, but your story might have a harder time appealing to some readers.



So true. I'll already have audience issues since my MC is young but the book is definitely not YA. Perhaps another group who won't like it isn't so bad?


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## Gryphos

Trick said:
			
		

> I don't want to switch a character, but I wouldn't mind giving an existing female character more of a role. One of the thieves is pretty interesting.



That's absolutely fine. I completely understand the difficulty in changing large details about an already realised character, so I would say go ahead and give more screen time to one of your female thieves.


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## Devor

It kind of depends.  My own advice would usually be that you focus less on adding more women, and focus more on doing well by the women who are already in your story.  But even saying that depends on just how strong the imbalance is and whether it's reasonable.  If you have a group of five friends and only one is a girl, well, those kinds of imbalanced groups do form all the time in real life.  But the bigger and more random your cast of characters, the closer it should get to a 50/50 ratio.


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## Legendary Sidekick

I guess a question I would ask is: if you had a bunch of women, would you throw in a guy just because?

I ask because I've thought of this recently.

I have two story lines with all-female groups. One is mostly used for bedtime stories for my daughters. Yeah, it's a whole different age group, but bear with me: eventually male characters did come up and they were a fun addition to the all-girl group. Of course, my daughters are just kids and could care less whether or not boy characters enter the story. It happened that the characters I had in mind worked as male.

Knowing this made me feel better about my more grown-up story that follows four warrior women. Male characters will come in go in those stories (because they're in a world where men do most of the fighting), but the main group is the four ladies. I don't see that as being a problem because the friendship they have works best without a guy.

Likewise, I don't think focusing on a bunch of male characters is problematic for your story. If a female thief naturally grows into a major character, that's fine too. (I've had characters become more important than planned, including one that was meant to be killed off. I really liked him! I still stuck to his arc ending in death, though.) I'm just saying I don't think there's a need to _force_ a female character to become more important because she's female and the others are not.



Graylorne said:


> I think we worry too much. Just write the book and don't try to make artificial changes just because.


^Well said.


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## Steerpike

What count as an artificial change? A piece of fiction is, by its nature, an artificial construct of words.


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## Trick

Devor said:


> It kind of depends.  My own advice would usually be that you focus less on adding more women, and focus more on doing well by the women who are already in your story.  But even saying that depends on just how strong the imbalance is and whether it's reasonable.  If you have a group of five friends and only one is a girl, well, those kinds of imbalanced groups do form all the time in real life.  But the bigger and more random your cast of characters, the closer it should get to a 50/50 ratio.



I agree. It is a small cast. There are two POV characters, with the MC taking up a good 75% of the book. The only other important characters are the villain, the villain's advisor, The MC's mother (the sister too but not as much), two semi-mentor characters and a minor villain unrelated to the main villain. 

I think I will play up the one female thief character because I like her and there are several ways she could be important later. I think I also thought of something that would make her a loyal friend to the MC even after she doesn't see him for over five years, so that's cool.


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## Svrtnsse

Steerpike said:


> What count as an artificial change? A piece of fiction is, by its nature, an artificial construct of words.



For the sake of the argument. Let's say it's a change you make because you think it will appease your readers, rather than because it fits your vision for the story.


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## Steerpike

Svrtnsse said:


> For the sake of the argument. Let's say it's a change you make because you think it will appease your readers, rather than because it fits your vision for the story.



I think that works.

However, those are the kinds of choices writers make all the time, particularly if they want commercial success (let's set aside authors of literary fiction for the moment). Authors choose the style in which a story is written, they go through editing processes, and once the publisher gets it the editors even ask for changes to the story based on what they think will sell and what they think will make readers happy. It's a normal part of at least the traditional publishing process. But if it comes down to changing something like sex or sexual orientation of a character, some people see it as some drastic, if not appalling, undertaking. My question is, out of all the artificial choices a writer and/or publisher makes out of considerations of marketability, why does this one inspire resentment so much more than the others.


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## Mythopoet

Steerpike said:


> My question is, out of all the artificial choices a writer and/or publisher makes out of considerations of marketability, why does this one inspire resentment so much more than the others.



I don't think it does. Not "so much more" than others. But as to why it might cause consternation, I think it's because men and women are significantly different and so it's a significant change. One would have to really rethink a character to change it from a man to a woman.


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## Steerpike

Mythopoet said:


> One would have to really rethink a character to change it from a man to a woman.



I don't agree with that. I have read that Ripley was originally a male character in Alien. That's how it was written. I don't think they changed the character much when they cast Sigourney Weaver.


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## Gryphos

Mythopoet said:
			
		

> I don't think it does. Not "so much more" than others. But as to why it might cause consternation, I think it's because men and women are significantly different and so it's a significant change. One would have to really rethink a character to change it from a man to a woman.



I really don't think men and women are that different – that's just something people like to think. And any changes that are present, be those psychological or physical, only exist in averages. To use a physical attribute like strength as an example, yes, men are _on average_ stronger than women, but strength varies from person to person to such a wide degree that it's ridiculous to assume a random man you see in the street is stronger than a random woman. The same idea can be applied to personality traits. It's all about the individual, not their sex.


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## Steerpike

Gryphos said:


> To use a physical attribute like strength as an example, yes, men are _on average_ stronger than women, but strength varies from person to person to such a wide degree that it's ridiculous to assume a random man you see in the street is stronger than a random woman. The same idea can be applied to personality traits. It's all about the individual, not their sex.



Yep. That's _exactly_ the mistake people make: treating their character like a probability distribution instead of an individual. I've pointed out on here before that one of my best friends is a female who is very male in how she acts. To further separate her from what might be a stereotypical analysis, she's small, very feminine, and a very pretty lady. She doesn't look masculine, but growing up she played fast-pitch baseball with the boys in high school (the only girl who played), and she was in the army, and she's a weight lifter, among other things. If you distilled her personality down onto paper, it would be what people using traditional gender assumptions would consider male. So would a character based on her be invalid? Of course not. Nor would any male or female character who exhibited what people stereotypically associated with the opposite sex.


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## Legendary Sidekick

I would agree that if expanding a female role or gender-swapping adds to the story, do what adds to the story.

I have to say that I think Ripley's role may have changed a little when the character became female. I was just thinking how I gender-swapped my DE barbarian. She still arm-wrestles like a man, but is also quick to play the big sister/mother-figure whenever she comes across captive children.

I think the relationship between Ripley and Newt would have been different with a guy Ripley. (Or I suppose the sequel would be different… or non-existent. I can't picture _Alien_ making it as a series without Weaver. That's both good and bad. Should've stopped at _Aliens.)_


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## Mythopoet

If men and women aren't that different, then what is the point of this? If they're basically the same, with different pronouns and maybe a few mentions of breasts, then who cares if characters are male or female? 

Either they aren't different, and therefore it shouldn't matter how many male or female characters you have.

Or they are different and therefore it's important to have male and female characters because of diversity and all that. 

It can't go both ways.


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## Trick

Steerpike said:


> My question is, out of all the artificial choices a writer and/or publisher makes out of considerations of marketability, why does this one inspire resentment so much more than the others.



I feel no resentment about it. Perhaps others do. I really just want to avoid people jumping to conclusions because of the way dice rolled. If I got overwhelming opinions that I needed to add/swap to female characters, I would do it in hopes of better sales in future. 

I think some resentment may come from this kind of situation:

"There are not enough female characters in your book."

*"Are you saying I'm sexist?"*

"No."

*"Oh, so you think I just can't write female characters?"*

"Not necessarily, but how could I know for sure? There's only one woman in the whole book and she's a deaf mute."

*"I see your point."*

"Yes, I think you have deep seeded issues."

--- That got away from me but you can see what I mean. If someone reads my book and notices a distinct lack of women that might cause them to think untrue things about me. But, at the same time, since those things are untrue, I should not have to change my book to keep people from jumping to false conclusions. 

All of this is moot to a certain extent once a writer keeps these things in mind before writing the book...


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## Gryphos

Legendary Sidekick said:
			
		

> I have to say that I think Ripley's role may have changed a little when the character became female. I was just thinking how I gender-swapped my DE barbarian. She still arm-wrestles like a man, but is also quick to play the big sister/mother-figure whenever she comes across captive children.



Why exactly did you think that the male barbarian would be incapable of acting like the caring parent-figure?


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## Devor

Steerpike said:


> Yep. That's _exactly_ the mistake people make: treating their character like a probability distribution instead of an individual. I've pointed out on here before that one of my best friends is a female who is very male in how she acts. To further separate her from what might be a stereotypical analysis, she's small, very feminine, and a very pretty lady. She doesn't look masculine, but growing up she played fast-pitch baseball with the boys in high school (the only girl who played), and she was in the army, and she's a weight lifter, among other things. If you distilled her personality down onto paper, it would be what people using traditional gender assumptions would consider male. So would a character based on her be invalid? Of course not. Nor would any male or female character who exhibited what people stereotypically associated with the opposite sex.



Here's the problem that I have.

You just described a personality as it exists on paper, at a point in time.  But you haven't said anything about her story.  I've listened to a number of women tell me their stories - I worked with a women who drove a garbage truck for a living, among many others - and regardless of their gender roles, gender still helps to shape their _story_.

I don't know about you, but I don't write to to fill out personality profiles, but to tell stories.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are many, many characters, and many, many stories, where the gender might not matter to the story.  Whether the innkeep is a man or a woman probably makes very little difference.  But if you're really telling the character's inner journey, then gender makes a very big difference.


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## Steerpike

Legendary Sidekick said:


> I have to say that I think Ripley's role may have changed a little when the character became female. I was just thinking how I gender-swapped my DE barbarian. She still arm-wrestles like a man, but is also quick to play the big sister/mother-figure whenever she comes across captive children.
> 
> I think the relationship between Ripley and Newt would have been different with a guy Ripley. (Or I suppose the sequel would be different… or non-existent. I can't picture _Alien_ making it as a series without Weaver. That's both good and bad. Should've stopped at _Aliens.)_



Yeah, I was going to say - I think they changed her a little bit for the second movie, but I don't think they did much changing for the first one, and I think she was just fine in the first film.


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## Steerpike

Mythopoet said:


> If men and women aren't that different, then what is the point of this? If they're basically the same, with different pronouns and maybe a few mentions of breasts, then who cares if characters are male or female?
> 
> Either they aren't different, and therefore it shouldn't matter how many male or female characters you have.
> 
> Or they are different and therefore it's important to have male and female characters because of diversity and all that.
> 
> It can't go both ways.



I don't agree. Representation does make a difference, and is important in and of itself. You don't have to attach gender stereotypes to your representations to make them significant.


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## Gryphos

Mythopoet said:
			
		

> If men and women aren't that different, then what is the point of this? If they're basically the same, with different pronouns and maybe a few mentions of breasts, then who cares if characters are male or female?



It matters in the grand scheme of things. If a girl grows up exposed to stories from every direction in which women are not portrayed as important, or not allowed to do all the cool things men do in stories, it will start to have a deep-rooted psychological effect on them in which they may start to believe they are somehow less valuable or important simply because they're female. This same concept applies to issues like race too. The point is that to try and combat this kind of thing from happening, it is important for writers to strive for representation, even though, in the end, men and women are not very different at all.


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## Steerpike

Devor said:


> But if you're really telling the character's inner journey, then gender makes a very big difference.



It might. It seems to me it depends largely on how gender differences are perceived and treated in your fantasy world. If one gender or another is oppressed, for example, then that's going to be significant.


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## Trick

Men and women are different, specifically because every person is different from every other person. To swap a character's gender might make little to no difference for a given character but I think that in many cases it would change them quite a bit. For instance, changing a character from a good looking man to a good looking woman would fundamentally change the behavior of many men in her vicinity; it would likely also change the behavior of the woman in her vicinity. That's biological and factual. Regardless of social norms in a fantasy world, if it still has the same basic concept of sexual attraction and has humans in it, it cannot be avoided. If a person is attracted to a particular sex and they encounter a person of that sex and feel attraction to them, that would likely be gone if the person was swapped to the other sex.


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## Gryphos

Trick said:


> Men and women are different, specifically because every person is different from every other person. To swap a character's gender might make little to no difference for a given character but I think that in many cases it would change them quite a bit. For instance, changing a character from a good looking man to a good looking woman would fundamentally change the behavior of many men in her vicinity; it would likely also change the behavior of the woman in her vicinity. That's biological and factual. Regardless of social norms in a fantasy world, if it still has the same basic concept of sexual attraction and has humans in it, it cannot be avoided. If a person is attracted to a particular sex and they encounter a person of that sex and feel attraction to them, that would likely be gone if the person was swapped to the other sex.



Yes, you're right, it may very subtly change how other people react to him/her. But it would not change his/her or anyone else's personality.


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## Steerpike

Gryphos said:


> Yes, you're right, it may very subtly change how other people react to him/her. But it would not change his/her or anyone else's personality.



And even then, how those external changes present themselves, and to what degree, are going to be dictated by the society of your fantasy world. It doesn't have to turn into a case of New York City-style leering or catcalling at the character now that they've changed sex.


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## Ryan_Crown

The concern I have with this issue (as someone who's current WIP features 4 male leads and no significant female characters, for no other reason than that's how things worked out as I developed the characters), is that if I decide to make one character female because I'm worried about having an all-male cast, I now have a "token" female in my story, and I hate the idea of a "token" character of any sort, because it feels almost dishonest in some ways (in other words, I feel like my story suddenly has a female character solely so that people won't complain about my story _not_ having a female character). Is my story better now because it's more diverse, or is it worse because I have a character who's only there to fill this diversity role?

Can't say I have a good answer, other than I'm going to write the story as I think it works best, and hope other people can appreciate it in the same light. I certainly wouldn't want my stories to be accused of being sexist, but at the same time I hate the idea that I should force changes into my narrative in order to appeal to every demographic/not offend anyone.


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## Devor

Among other things gender would affect the relationships you form, which is a big part in defining how your personality develops.

There's also another thing to consider:  It's a psychological concept called share of thought.  I don't think or talk a whole lot about what being a guy means to me.  I know people for whom it has meant quite a bit more.  But in any society women are going to give their gender a bigger share of their identity because it affects their life a lot more regularly, for both biological and cultural reasons.  That is, gender is something around which subcultures are prone to develop, and that's going to affect the character.

Lastly, simply saying "You can't write women as averages" doesn't help anyone write a woman at the "female end" of the spectrum.  It only leads to male writers writing a spectrum of women who skew towards the male end of any paradigm.


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## Steerpike

If you want to write a character at the stereotypically female end of the spectrum, then do so. The problem rests with the certain percentage of people who think you _have_ to write the female character at that end of the spectrum to have a real female character, which of course is bollocks.

All the other stuff regarding subcultures, etc. may or may not be true in any given fantasy society, depending on how you construct your world. You can create interesting approaches to such things, but they aren't an imperative.


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## Gryphos

> The concern I have with this issue (as someone who's current WIP features 4 male leads and no significant female characters, for no other reason than that's how things worked out as I developed the characters), is that if I decide to make one character female because I'm worried about having an all-male cast, I now have a "token" female in my story, and I hate the idea of a "token" character of any sort, because it feels almost dishonest in some ways (in other words, I feel like my story suddenly has a female character solely so that people won't complain about my story not having a female character). Is my story better now because it's more diverse, or is it worse because I have a character who's only there to fill this diversity role?



Tokens are only tokens if they're stereotypes or poorly developed. If they're a fully realised, complex character, they're not a token. Basically, you can avoid your female character becoming a token simply by giving her the same amount of attention you would to a male one.



> Lastly, simply saying "You can't write women as averages" doesn't help anyone write a woman at the "female end" of the spectrum. It only leads to male writers writing a spectrum of women who skew towards the male end of any paradigm.



What spectrum? Saying that there's a spectrum going from male to female qualities is something I find preposterous. It implies that being brave is somehow inherently masculine and caring inherently feminine. As I see it, there's no such thing as masculinity or femininity, there's only general qualities a person may or may not have.


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## Trick

Gryphos said:


> Yes, you're right, it may very subtly change how other people react to him/her. But it would not change his/her or anyone else's personality.



Maybe not the fundamentals but having that different set of experiences over their entire lives would change their behavior. And because of others' differing behavior toward them, they may have been in different situations than they might have been had they been born the opposite sex. This could lead to a fundamental change.

Then there is the factor of biology. Men and women have different hormonal balances, usually very different. Babies' brains are affected by hormones in such a way that it determines many factors of personality and attraction later in life. There are plenty of exceptions but for the most part there are standard hormones in men and women that play a role in how they act. 

My wife has to have her progesterone checked to make sure it is within a normal range (due to having some hormonal issues from pregnancy). If it's not, she feels ill for one thing, but her behavior changes. She gets more angry than any other time. She is more likely to cry over small things.

This is definitely not something I have to deal with for myself so, it is a feeling and experience that has never affected me. Regardless of outside influence, if we put humans (i.e. biologically the same) in our work, this is a factor.


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## Gryphos

> Then there is the factor of biology. Men and women have different hormonal balances, usually very different. Babies' brains are affected by hormones in such a way that it determines many factors of personality and attraction later in life. There plenty of exceptions but for the most part there are standard hormones in men and women that play a role in how they act.



Again this links to averages. Men and women have different hormonal balances ON AVERAGE. Some men have high levels of oestrogen, and some women have high levels of testosterone.


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## Devor

Steerpike said:


> If you want to write a character at the stereotypically female end of the spectrum, then do so. The problem rests with the certain percentage of people who think you _have_ to write the female character at that end of the spectrum to have a real female character, which of course is bollocks.



I'll agree with that - but I don't think that's what people are necessarily saying.




Gryphos said:


> What spectrum? Saying that there's a spectrum going from male to female qualities is something I find preposterous. It implies that being brave is somehow inherently masculine and caring inherently feminine. As I see it, there's no such thing as masculinity or femininity, there's only general qualities a person may or may not have.



Of course there's a spectrum - even baby monkeys in the zoo behave differently based on their gender.


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## Gryphos

> Of course there's a spectrum - even baby monkeys in the zoo behave differently based on their gender.



Monkeys exist in a natural, Darwinian world. We humans don't. We don't need to even consider primal concepts of gender. Thus, should we treat it as though those restrictive concepts apply to us? I certainly don't think so. If we have the self awareness to break away from animalistic gender roles and ideals, then let's.


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## Steerpike

I think George R.R. Martin made a good point in talking about this. He said when you're dealing with characters different from yourself (it could be a female (if you're male), or a prince, or a dwarf, or whatever), you start with the basic knowledge that they're more like you than unlike you, and you use that as a foundation for building empathy. He said that character who has different genitalia than he has still has the same basic humanity. 

One big problem beginning writers make, in my opinion, is that when they write characters of the opposite sex they forget that there are vastly more commonalities than differences, and they end up with some caricature or stereotype of gender that is quite unconvincing. As between the two, you're much better off relying solely on the commonalities than you are relying on stereotyped notions of what the extremes look like.


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## Devor

Gryphos said:


> Monkeys exist in a natural, Darwinian world. We humans don't. We don't need to even consider primal concepts of gender. Thus, should we treat it as though those restrictive concepts apply to us? I certainly don't think so. If we have the self awareness to break away from animalistic gender roles and ideals, then let's.



None of that has to do with writing a woman, unless you're implying that there's something wrong with writing women who meet some kind of "primal concepts of gender," whatever that's supposed to mean.


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## Devor

Steerpike said:


> As between the two, you're much better off relying solely on the commonalities than you are relying on stereotyped notions of what the extremes look like.



Sure.  But that seems like a false dichotomy.  You could ditch the _stereotyped_ notions of gender and try to understand the psychological concepts at a more accurate level.


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## Steerpike

This thread is a good example of how default assumptions in society can be firmly rooted and even become internalized.

"If you want to write a female character, she has to behave in ways X, Y, or Z according to how females are likely to behave."

Really? But my female character has a background and experiences that make her more typically male in terms of her actions and reaction.

"Then the character should just be male."

OK. So to make a character male you don't need a particular justification, and you don't have to follow any preconceived stereotypes from the real world. But if I want a significant female character instead, then I need a justification for it (or should default to male) and a set of attributes that sufficiently distinguish her from what a male is presumed to be like to justify calling her female (or else just default to male instead).

Doesn't make a lick of sense, but ok


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## Gryphos

Devor said:


> None of that has to do with writing a woman, unless you're implying that there's something wrong with writing women who meet some kind of "primal concepts of gender," whatever that's supposed to mean.



What I was poorly trying to get at is that even if in nature there are inherently 'masculine' and 'feminine' qualities, they don't necessarily apply to human society, and we certainly shouldn't treat things as if they do. Because if we make being brave an inherently masculine quality and caring a feminine one, we are creating gender roles.


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## Steerpike

Devor said:


> Sure.  But that seems like a false dichotomy.  You could ditch the _stereotyped_ notions of gender and try to understand the psychological concepts at a more accurate level.



Then you're looking at the character as an individual, which is what you should be doing. And the background, psychology, and everything else about your female may very well make her more stereotypically male in her reactions, or vice versa. As long as you're building it up from the standpoint of the character as an individual, I think the characterization will ring true and it will be fine. But there have been statements in this thread to the effect that the mere fact a character is female necessarily leads to certain attributes being attached to her behavior, which is nonsense in my view.


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## Steerpike

Gryphos said:


> What I was poorly trying to get at is that even if in nature there are inherently 'masculine' and 'feminine' qualities, they don't necessarily apply to human society, and we certainly shouldn't treat things as if they do. Because if we make being brave an inherently masculine quality and caring a feminine one, we are creating gender roles.



Not to mention that none of that need apply at all in a fantasy world, where you make the rules.

Hey, cool dragons and orcs! What, gender roles that don't conform to western stereotypes? That's so unrealistic!


----------



## Guy

If I want to write the character as female, I write the character as female. If I want to write the character as male, I write the character as male. I'm male, but when I write female characters I don't concern myself with "would a woman say/do/think this or that?" I don't care. I know what this individual would say/do/think because I created her. The characters need to be whoever they are and to hell with demographics. Basing a character on demographics is likely to be counterproductive because it can result in a sexist stereotype and the writer who seeks to placate certain readers ends up offending them.


----------



## Nihal

Well, here is the thing from my particular female POV: Those assumptions that I somehow care about my gender and what means to be a woman pisses me off. Seriously, having a young apparent age and small build (for whatever gender you pick) have a greater impact on my life than my gender!

The only evident change in my life that happens due my gender is how _other people_ perceive me. There is this trend to praise/demonize the exact same traits when you compare women and men, like acting angry being considered bitchy when it's a woman or "male" when it's a man. He wants to protect the child? How brave! She wants? Motherly instinct (taking away her merit).

Seriously, we women aren't a walking set of rules, stereotypes and concepts. Our gender doesn't rule our lives as strongly as you'd think. Even "feminine" things as using makeup or liking to use nice clothes aren't rooted in the "female" side—they happen exactly for the same reason you bought that awesome mug/keychain/whatever personal use object there. We liked it. Using it, the pretty or cool thing we personally chose make us happy.


----------



## SugoiMe

I would say don't worry about it. I'm Nearly in the same boat in that most of my key characters are male. There's a bit of interaction between my MC and minor female characters, but much more between men. That being said, I'm a woman, so it's always been a challenge to write from a man's perspective, but the story for now requires a lot of men. I'd say it doesn't really matter so long as your story's compelling. You don't have to represent every race/gender to write a compelling story, in my opinion.


----------



## Steerpike

Guy said:


> I don't care. I know what this individual would say/do/think because I created her. The characters need to be whoever they are and to hell with demographics.



^This.....


----------



## Devor

Steerpike said:


> This thread is a good example of how default assumptions in society can be firmly rooted and even become internalized.
> 
> "If you want to write a female character, she has to behave in ways X, Y, or Z according to how females are likely to behave."
> 
> Really? But my female character has a background and experiences that make her more typically male in terms of her actions and reaction.
> 
> "Then the character should just be male."
> 
> OK. So to make a character male you don't need a particular justification, and you don't have to follow any preconceived stereotypes from the real world. But if I want a significant female character instead, then I need a justification for it (or should default to male) and a set of attributes that sufficiently distinguish her from what a male is presumed to be like to justify calling her female (or else just default to male instead).
> 
> Doesn't make a lick of sense, but ok



What . . . ?  I was only saying that gender has a big impact on a character that we should try to understand instead of dismiss when we write.  I'm not really sure where you're coming from.  I think maybe BWFoster said something like this?


----------



## Trick

Gryphos said:


> Again this links to averages. Men and women have different hormonal balances ON AVERAGE. Some men have high levels of oestrogen, and some women have high levels of testosterone.



I'm not saying that we can't write about people who are not average, I'm saying statistically most people will fall into these norms. If every character in a book does not, it will feel false to most people. "Some men have high levels of oestrogen, and some women have high levels of testosterone." is a completely arbitrary statement.


----------



## Steerpike

Devor said:


> What . . . ?  I was only saying that gender has a big impact on a character that we should try to understand instead of dismiss when we write.  I'm not really sure where you're coming from.  I think maybe BWFoster said something like this?



I wasn't pointing out your posts specifically. Just a general comment.

I think it is more accurate to say that gender _may_ have a big impact on the character. But it may not. And whether it does or not, and whether and how that is expressed in the character, is going to vary across a wide spectrum based on any given individual. So you don't have to do it a certain way for a given character, and depending on how far you want to delve into it in a given story it may not even be applicable, particularly if the effects are relatively limited in that character's world.


----------



## ascanius

Ok, I've been holding off on commenting on the whole diversity thread because I was having trouble explaining my thoughts.

Then i read this thread and this.



Gryphos said:


> Again this links to averages. Men and women have different hormonal balances ON AVERAGE. Some men have high levels of oestrogen, and some women have high levels of testosterone.



Sorry Gryphos this is not an averages thing is, this is a scientific fact of biology.  That double XX  or XY chromosome determines a lot about a persons personality as explained by Trick.  Those chromosomes also determine a lot about how a person perceives the world around them.  case in point researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that male and female brains are wired differently.  In this case it has to do with the connectors between the two hemispheres (left logic, right intuitive) which are much more numerous in women.  Women have more inter hemisphere talk, while in men the connectors are mostly restricted to the individual hemispheres and the cerebellum.  If women are hardwired to have those two hemispheres communicate more it stands to reason they would be better at performing tasks that require such  inter hemisphere communication.  A task such as communication for instance is something women excel at due to logic in the left hemisphere(logic) and empathy in the right, a simple sentence has more meaning to a woman than for a man.  

Writing a character and not taking biology into consideration is a disservice to the character but also to those readers who identify with that sex.  Girls are not boys in different clothing nor the opposite.


----------



## Mythopoet

It boggles my mind that so many people here don't seem to think that gender wouldn't have any influence on an individual.


----------



## Steerpike

ascanius said:


> Writing a character and not taking biology into consideration is a disservice to the character but also to those readers who identify with that sex.  Girls are not boys in different clothing nor the opposite.



This again is based on statistical probabilities and forcing them onto your characters. For any set of "more likely" characteristics for males or females based on biology, you can find plenty of exceptions to the rule. So the whole thing is next to worthless when it comes to figuring out how a specific character should react. If you're relying on external factors such as your idea of what biology would dictate, rather than characterization, I think you're making a mistake.

Unless you're writing a story or world in which biological determinism features heavily, I suppose. Which segues to the point about fantasy worlds and that none of these biological factors even have to be true, or presented in society, in the same manner they are in the real world (even if you wanted to argue they exist to any appreciable degree in the real world).


----------



## Steerpike

Mythopoet said:


> It boggles my mind that so many people here don't seem to think that gender wouldn't have any influence on an individual.



I don't think people are really saying that, so the boggling is probably a manifestation of your mistaking what is being said. People are simply pointing out that characters are individuals, and it makes no sense to assume that a statistically most-likely distribution of gender-based characteristics apply to that specific individual. That's basis stats, right? It doesn't tell you anything about the individual.


----------



## Steerpike

(Drat. Have to head out the door). 

I score it Proponents of Caricatures - 0; Champions of the Individual - 6.

I could be off.


----------



## Mythopoet

Steerpike said:


> I don't think people are really saying that, so the boggling is probably a manifestation of your mistaking what is being said. People are simply pointing out that characters are individuals, and it makes no sense to assume that a statistically most-likely distribution of gender-based characteristics apply to that specific individual. That's basis stats, right? It doesn't tell you anything about the individual.



No, I really don't think I'm mistaking what is being said, but I do think several people here are arguing against a straw man. No one here was talking about statistics or stereotypes or anything like that.


----------



## Gryphos

> Sorry Gryphos this is not an averages thing is, this is a scientific fact of biology. That double XX or XY chromosome determines a lot about a persons personality as explained by Trick. Those chromosomes also determine a lot about how a person perceives the world around them. case in point researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that male and female brains are wired differently. In this case it has to do with the connectors between the two hemispheres (left logic, right intuitive) which are much more numerous in women. Women have more inter hemisphere talk, while in men the connectors are mostly restricted to the individual hemispheres and the cerebellum. If women are hardwired to have those two hemispheres communicate more it stands to reason they would be better at performing tasks that require such inter hemisphere communication. A task such as communication for instance is something women excel at due to logic in the left hemisphere(logic) and empathy in the right, a simple sentence has more meaning to a woman than for a man.



My point still stands that not every man has a higher level of testosterone than every woman. About the brain research, it shows some very interesting differences. However, are you saying that all women are better at communication than all men? Clearly that's not the case.


----------



## Mythopoet

Steerpike said:


> (Drat. Have to head out the door).
> 
> I score it Proponents of Caricatures - 0; Champions of the Individual - 6.
> 
> I could be off.



Wow. Just wow. NO ONE here is a proponent of caricatures. That was really insulting.


----------



## Steerpike

Mythopoet said:


> Wow. Just wow. NO ONE here is a proponent of caricatures. That was really insulting.



Just a little forum humor for the afternoon


----------



## Steerpike

Mythopoet said:


> No, I really don't think I'm mistaking what is being said, but I do think several people here are arguing against a straw man. No one here was talking about statistics or stereotypes or anything like that.



Isn't it necessarily the case, though? If you say a person didn't write a female right because a female wouldn't do that, what can that be based on except a statistical likelihood of what females do? And if you don't think a statistical likelihood of what a woman would do should be applied, then what's the problem with having a female that acts the same as her male counterpart would (which you expressed a problem with, above)?


----------



## ascanius

Steerpike said:


> This again is based on statistical probabilities and forcing them onto your characters. For any set of "more likely" characteristics for males or females based on biology, you can find plenty of exceptions to the rule. So the whole thing is next to worthless when it comes to figuring out how a specific character should react. If you're relying on external factors such as your idea of what biology would dictate, rather than characterization, I think you're making a mistake.



This isn't statistical probability this is fact all one has to do is look that the physical differences between male and female to see it, or menstruation in women.  Now there are statistical probabilities towards a predisposition that is due to the complex gene interactions but these mostly relate to disease and other physical/chemical environmental factors.

However. you think I make a mistake fair enough.  This is how I view it.  Is having a female character who is more emotional than her male brethren mean i'm not writing a rounded character, or that every month she has to deal with her period, fighting a war, being tired of all the dying and having to deal with a hundred other things and all she wants to do is find her friend and cry.  I can have a foundation based on biology but there are a lot of possibilities that I can construct based off of it if used subtly.


----------



## Trick

Steerpike said:


> I think George R.R. Martin made a good point in talking about this. He said when you're dealing with characters different from yourself (it could be a female (if you're male), or a prince, or a dwarf, or whatever), you start with the basic knowledge that they're more like you than unlike you, and you use that as a foundation for building empathy. He said that character who has different genitalia than he has still has the same basic humanity.
> 
> One big problem beginning writers make, in my opinion, is that when they write characters of the opposite sex they forget that there are vastly more commonalities than differences, and they end up with some caricature or stereotype of gender that is quite unconvincing. As between the two, you're much better off relying solely on the commonalities than you are relying on stereotyped notions of what the extremes look like.



This I agree with. But the OP is about something different, it's not about how to write female characters but rather whether it is fundamentally bad to have no female characters of note in a book.


----------



## Steerpike

ascanius said:


> Is having a female character who is more emotional than her male brethren mean i'm not writing a rounded character, or that every month she has to deal with her period, fighting a war, being tired of all the dying and having to deal with a hundred other things and all she wants to do is find her friend and cry.



No, I don't think that there's a problem with that character at all. The problem comes in when you start assuming a female character _has_​ to be more emotional than her male brethren. She doesn't. She might be, but she doesn't have to be.


----------



## Steerpike

Trick said:


> This I agree with. But the OP is about something different, it's not about how to write female characters but rather whether it is fundamentally bad to have no female characters of note in a book.



I think for a given book, the answer is "no." It's not bad to have no female characters of note. Just like it is not bad to have no male characters of note. 

If it becomes so prevalent in a genre that there are almost no good representations of females, then I think it becomes a problem. This isn't the current state of fantasy, luckily. It's more approximately true of gaming, especially up until the last few years.


----------



## Nihal

Isn't it puzzling the use of _biological differences_, _statistics_ and the like to force dubious preconceived notions on female characters but have none of it for males?

--
In any case, regarding the original question: I'd rather have a book without female characters than have artificial female characters "because reasons". Not that I fully enjoy a book with all-male casts, they feel insipid, but there are far worse dangers in writing.


----------



## Gryphos

Trick said:


> This I agree with. But the OP is about something different, it's not about how to write female characters but rather whether it is fundamentally bad to have no female characters of note in a book.



Yeah, funny how threads can get so easily derailed. I still believe you should go ahead and add some significance to your female thief character, because I do think its important to get some representation in there for various reasons. But it's not essential, and in the end it is your choice.


----------



## Devor

Nihal said:


> Well, here is the thing from my particular female POV: Those assumptions that I somehow care about my gender and what means to be a woman pisses me off. Seriously, having a young apparent age and small build (for whatever gender you pick) have a greater impact on my life than my gender!



Nihal, I get where you're coming from.  Really I do.

Here's just a little of where I'm coming from:

I worked for a week at a business to business sales job.  I say worked, but as it was a commission job, and as the first week was training, I think I made all of $90.

We were taught to sell on impulse, and while it didn't appear in any of the training manuals, we were taught to target "Debby."  "Debby" is whoever the woman was that was responsible for purchasing in the business.

You see, as a woman, "Debby" can be expected to have lower testosterone levels.  This means that if we can trigger a spike in her testosterone levels during the sale, she will have less resistance to it, and be more inclined to make a risky purchase on impulse.

Testosterone levels make a person feel powerful, like they can take on anything, like they can take a risk.  It's the same technique youtubers talk about when they give advice for getting laid.  People make bad decisions when they're on a testosterone spike, unless they've already made those bad decisions and have adapted to it.

Once you've seen it happen, it's really hard to ignore.  And I've seen it happen a lot.




> The only evident change in my life that happens due my gender is how _other people_ perceive me. There is this trend to praise/demonize the exact same traits when you compare women and men, like acting angry being considered bitchy when it's a woman or "male" when it's a man. He wants to protect the child? How brave! She wants? Motherly instinct (taking away her merit).



Yeah, I'm not crazy about that, either.




> Seriously, we women aren't a walking set of rules, stereotypes and concepts. Our gender doesn't rule our lives as strongly as you'd think. Even "feminine" things as using makeup or liking to use nice clothes aren't rooted in the "female" side—they happen exactly for the same reason you bought that awesome mug/keychain/whatever personal use object there. We liked it. Using it, the pretty or cool thing we personally chose make us happy.



I have no idea how much of what you like is because you're a woman.  I could make a guess based on classes I took in marketing - the behind the scenes of why people buy what they do - but I really don't care.  Just that fact that we're talking about it probably makes it look like I think it dominates everything everywhere.  It's skewed by the fact that people bring it up, so we talk about it.  But I'd be perfectly happy if it never came up and I never had to think about anyone's gender ever again.


----------



## ascanius

Steerpike said:


> No, I don't think that there's a problem with that character at all. The problem comes in when you start assuming a female character _has_​ to be more emotional than her male brethren. She doesn't. She might be, but she doesn't have to be.



Ok Steerpike I get what your saying.  You have a problem with the Women are weak weaklings who are incapable of math and always need rescuing.  To this I agree.
This is what I'm saying.  Biology is an important part of who a person is and shapes who they were and who they become.

I'm not saying it should be used to bludgeon but with subtly.   Grrrr.  I have this in my mind but I cant find the right words....  I'm going to get back to you tomorrow I need to get to bed.

As a side not I don't think it is a problem to have an all male cast.  It all depends on the story you want to tell.


----------



## ascanius

I cannot write as fast you guys and keep up at the same time SLOW DOWN.  hehe.   so one more....then to bed.



Nihal said:


> Isn't it puzzling the use of _biological differences_, _statistics_ and the like to force dubious preconceived notions on female characters but have none of it for males?


They exist but they just haven't been brought up yet, guys are not good communicators for one, perfect example me and my failed attempt at explaining to steerpike.  goodnight


----------



## ThinkerX

Male-female...'ratio' is something I have wrestled with in my own writings.  I came to this site with a list of about half a dozen works I deemed salvageable.  When I went to take a look at them a few years ago, it struck me that all of the principle characters and most of the secondary ones were males.  In some of these stories, this ratio made sense, because they were 'military fantasy' type tales.  But in others, I decided the over-abundance of male characters limited the story telling opportunities.  So I did a bit of gender switching in my WIP, and give more page space to female characters in other stories.  

That said, even in historical patriarchal societies, there were some dang tough warrior women types.  Genghis Khan's daughters were more able across the board than his sons, and there were some fearfully blood thirsty female Viking pirates as well.   Such aberrations tended to get written out of the patriarchal history books, but they were there.


----------



## Trick

Nihal said:


> In any case, regarding the original question: I'd rather have a book without female characters than have artificial female characters "because reasons". Not that I fully enjoy a book with all-male casts, they feel insipid, but there are far worse dangers in writing.



I do not have a problem writing female characters simply because I don't have a problem writing characters in general. It just so happened that this book ended up with very few female characters and I worry about the marketing downsides to that.


----------



## Jabrosky

For what it's worth, as a male writer, I have worked with both male and female protagonists. I don't believe that, in the vast majority of instances, a female character will necessarily have to be written differently from her male counterpart. The sole exception might be instances of heterosexual attraction, since men and women really do have noticeably different anatomy even if their intelligence and psychology overlaps. I know firsthand what a heterosexual man would find physically attractive on a woman, but can only guess at what a heterosexual woman would find attractive on a man.

As an aside, whenever I play a role-playing game like Skyrim where I get to customize my character's appearance, I almost always choose a woman. In fact I believe this is connected to my interest in female protagonists when writing. What can I say, I like beautiful ladies who kick butt.


----------



## Svrtnsse

From page 2 of this thread:


Steerpike said:


> My question is, out of all the artificial choices a writer and/or publisher makes out of considerations of marketability, why does this one inspire resentment so much more than the others.



I thought this was a really interesting question, and decided to think about it while I went for a walk. Then I forgot all about it and now there's an eight page thread about something more or less related to gender stereotypes. I skimmed the thread, but didn't find anything that specifically answered why people tend to get so up in arms over the potential gender swapping of characters.

Anyway, here goes...

Based on my own experience, it seems that men are a lot more concerned with how to write female characters, than women are with writing male characters.
I'm thinking that on some, probably subconscious, level many men are really worried about getting women wrong. Getting women wrong is visible proof that they don't understand women, which in turn is an embarrassing sign of weakness. 
Basically, by questioning a male writer's portrayal of women, you're also questioning his manliness.

Now, I don't think that this a conscious reaction among men, but rather a subconscious one, and you can probably get around it quite easily by just being aware of it.

I believe this lies close to the heart of the matter. 
I also believe that this is mainly an issue for beginning/younger writers and that it's something that you "grow out of" by just practicing your craft or, like here, talking about it.


----------



## Guy

Nihal said:


> Well, here is the thing from my particular female POV: Those assumptions that I somehow care about my gender and what means to be a woman pisses me off. Seriously, having a young apparent age and small build (for whatever gender you pick) have a greater impact on my life than my gender!
> 
> The only evident change in my life that happens due my gender is how _other people_ perceive me. There is this trend to praise/demonize the exact same traits when you compare women and men, like acting angry being considered bitchy when it's a woman or "male" when it's a man. He wants to protect the child? How brave! She wants? Motherly instinct (taking away her merit).
> 
> Seriously, we women aren't a walking set of rules, stereotypes and concepts. Our gender doesn't rule our lives as strongly as you'd think. Even "feminine" things as using makeup or liking to use nice clothes aren't rooted in the "female" side–they happen exactly for the same reason you bought that awesome mug/keychain/whatever personal use object there. We liked it. Using it, the pretty or cool thing we personally chose make us happy.


Holy Crap! You mean you guys are human? Who knew?


----------



## Feo Takahari

Skipping everything between pages 2 and 7, because holy cow that grew fast . . .

I edit for an author who, whenever he creates a new character, tends to make that character male without thinking about it. Problem: he's trying to write a polygamous matriarchy, which already invites all manner of critique no matter how he does it. Add in that the MC is a male character from outside that society, and that every major threat to the society is external, and you've got an entire story about strong, powerful male characters threatening or defending female characters! 

I hit him over the head with the metaphorical cluebat, and got him to genderswap an outsider whose sex didn't matter one way or another. I think I'll recommend any future powerful outsiders be female as well. It's not about avoiding sexism exactly, so much as avoiding a situation where someone who doesn't live in your head and doesn't make the same assumptions you do would probably think you're sexist.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that gender doesn't matter until it does. It's not necessarily about one character. Depending on context, it may not be about one cast! It's about what patterns you keep falling into, and whether those patterns lend themselves to anything questionable.


----------



## Amanita

I won't comment on the general discussion about writing character of different genders but a little remark about the original question. 
I'm not upset by stories with few female characters per se, as someone has posted before, there truly are quite a few stories with interesting female characters so it is quite possible to pick something else. After reading your other thread, I am bothered by the fact that the female characters who are there only exist to be brutally murdered/tortured so the male lead can react to this situation. Rather no female character at all than those who have no agency and are only objects so the readers can be shocked and the male character bound on revenge. This trope is still all too common.
Therefore, having a female character in another situation would certainly improve this impression even though I see the problems with adding characters for the sake of adding them alone.


----------



## Trick

Amanita said:


> After reading your other thread, I am bothered by the fact that the female characters who are there only exist to be brutally murdered/tortured so the male lead can react to this situation.



To be honest, the mother character does have agency. Her influence on the MC is the only thing that keeps him from simply being a villain. But, I see your point and it is a large part of the reason for my original question, regardless of where the thread strayed to. I have resolved to bring the strongest female character other than the mother more strongly into view. I chose this because, after some helpful suggestions, I began to consider her in relation to the existing plot and making her more vital will actually make my job easier! She's already introduced and will now fill the role of another side character who I would have wasted time introducing and she has an actual reason to fill the role without a single change to the overall story arch. It felt so natural to make this change that I can't believe I didn't think of it before.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Trick said:


> It felt so natural to make this change


Then I would dare say it's a change for the better. That's awesome that the thought you put into this led to a solution that helps you tell your story more effectively (and possibly in a more interesting way as well). Congrats!


----------



## SeverinR

It depends on the story.
If you are in places with few females it might be hard to plant a female. Most real battlefield stories won't have a long role for females. The men fight and move on, women would not be expected to stay with the warriors. MAybe a war-bride scenerio would work, but the woman would be left behind. The battle field nurse, another possibility.
Now, if you are in a nunery and have no female characters, there might be a problem.

Most common period beliefs had women in submissive role. So the outspoken female equal to a male would be a rarity.  So a female main character might be a tough sell also.  There has always been the rebel, so a female character is always possible.


----------



## cupiscent

I'm with Amanita - my biggest concern from the first description was the fridging of a lady-character.

But just to add my two cents: I need to have a lot of positive comment on a book from all sides for me to pick it up if it doesn't mention a woman in its blurb/plot outline. And then, unless an author engages with why the scenario is all-male, and what that means for the characters, the chances of me being very critical of it are pretty high if it doesn't pass the Bechdel test.


----------



## acapes

Hey Trick, I'd like to second something Devor said a while back (hope that's who said it!) but maybe you could beef up the role of one of the female thieves? 

It'll probably feel more organic to the story, as opposed to a character being inserted now when you've written so much, and it sounds like she'd be fun to write


----------



## ascanius

cupiscent said:


> I'm with Amanita - my biggest concern from the first description was the fridging of a lady-character.
> 
> But just to add my two cents: I need to have a lot of positive comment on a book from all sides for me to pick it up if it doesn't mention a woman in its blurb/plot outline. And then, unless an author engages with why the scenario is all-male, and what that means for the characters, the chances of me being very critical of it are pretty high if it doesn't pass the Bechdel test.



Don't you find those criteria limiting?  I guess we each like what we like though.

I think the fridge logic above would be valid if the story were finished and the author doesn't handle that aspect well, a possibility.  However adding a female character to cover up short comings can be just as bad, to me they are two different issues. 

I don't see anything wrong with having an all male cast,  there are many good works that do such things for both male and female characters.  Saving private Ryan and Little Women as examples, both good movies, haven't read little women, that I enjoy and I may like little women more.  Little women has male cast but the focus is Joe and her relationship with her sisters, if anything the two males are there for romantic intrest only.  I you want to tell a story that focuses more on the male relationships I don't see why that would be wrong.


----------



## cupiscent

ascanius said:


> Don't you find those criteria limiting?  I guess we each like what we like though.


My to-read list on goodreads is 167 books long, so apparently not. But yes, we do all have the things we prefer and don't prefer to see - I was just noting that for me, no ladies is a big hurdle to overcome.


----------



## Nameback

ascanius said:


> Writing a character and not taking biology into consideration is a disservice to the character but also to those readers who identify with that sex.  Girls are not boys in different clothing nor the opposite.



Nope, you're still in the realm of "averages" and "usually" in this case. I think I can explain this best by example: it's a "scientific fact of biology" that human beings have more neurons in the cerebellum than in the rest of the brain, despite the cerebellum's far smaller volume. Except, you know, for people who were born without cerebellums. 

That may sound extreme, but it actually happens! Perhaps most interesting about that story, the woman who was born without a cerebellum still managed to develop serviceable motor control, despite missing the _entirety_ of the most important part of the brain for executing movement. 

My point is this: scientific "facts" about humans are not actually "fact" for every human being on earth. Fact: humans have bilateral symmetry. Unless you're born without a left arm. Fact: humans rely heavily on sight to navigate the world. Unless you're blind. Fact: XY humans are male, and XX humans are female. Unless you are born with X, XXX, XXXX, XXXXX, XXXXY, XXY, XYY, XXYY, or are an XX male, or an XY female. And yes, all of those things happen. 

Here's the thing about "scientific facts." The words _male_ and _female_, along with the categories they represent, are not _facts_. They do not exist independent of human minds who use those words and those categories to make sense of the world. Now, plenty of things exist whether we are here to acknowledge them or not, but _categories_ are a very human construction that we use to make decisions. Evaluating every human being individually without referencing useful generalizations would be impossible, which is why we evolved such an affinity for putting similar things into boxes.

The problem is that, because these categories don't actually reflect the extreme detail and nuance of reality, but rather reflect our needs for generalization and decision-making, they _inevitably_ hit upon cases that don't fit precisely into either box, and we're left trying to shove someone who doesn't fit into our preconceptions. To make that idea concrete, look up how doctors in the US used to advise surgery for intersex people to make them "properly" male or female (here's a hint: it didn't usually turn out well). 

So, no. The "facts" of gender are, _in fact_, averages, generalities, roughlys, usuallys, most-of-the-times, typicallys, and rules of thumb. They are not absolutes. They are not universals--and that's a fact.


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## Nameback

More relevant to the OP's concerns, I have deliberately changed the gender of characters to make sure I keep what I see as a desirable gender-balance. I don't see this as "trying not to offend people" and I believe that's a poor way of thinking about it.

All texts, I would argue, are political artifacts. That includes works of fiction that are not explicitly political--your fiction exists in a wider world, as do you, and both you and the fiction are influenced by the society in which you live (even if that means opposing aspects of the society), and you and your fiction have an influence on that society in turn. To that end, it's perfectly natural and artistically appropriate to consider the political implications of one's work and make sure they match what you want the implications to be.

I want my fiction to represent diversity in a positive way. I want my fiction to deal with racism, and sexism, and class hierarchy, and get at the underpinnings of these things while also commenting on possible alternatives. Thus, when I change something in my book to make it more in-line with my politics, I'm not bowing to external pressure--I'm doing what _I want_. What I want, among many other things, is to write a book with diverse characters and lots of women with agency. Do what you want to do--if you _want_ to write a book that includes a more even gender-balance, for whatever reason, then do it, and make _deliberate_ choices to do so, just like you would make deliberate choices in your writing to reach your goals for plot, character, and setting.

Edit: To make this a little clearer, we all make deliberate choices when writing to ensure our work meets our goals for things like character and plot. If you want to write a book with fully-realized characters, you will make conscious decisions to achieve that goal. You won't just say to yourself "well, I ended up writing something with one-dimensional cardboard characters, but that's just the way the dice rolled. It would be artificial for me to go back and change my book so radically just to please people who want complex characters with rich inner lives." 

There's _no difference_ between a goal like that and a political goal, and people ought to stop acting as if they're unrelated. Overcoming bias and social hierarchy usually requires purposeful, conscious action. If such overcoming is a goal of yours, then be purposeful in reaching it, and don't worry one whit about being "artificial."


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## Trick

I solved my problem in the book without having to switch any genders (see my last post) but I disagree with the concept that men and women are not different. I believe we are equal but different and I don't mean that in an exclusionary way (except perhaps to exclude men from child birth, which is pretty significant). People keep saying "the law of averages" ... 99% is a hell of an average. However, I do not begrudge others their opinions and am happy so many people weighed in on my dilemma.


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## Nameback

Trick said:


> I solved my problem in the book without having to switch any genders (see my last post) but I disagree with the concept that men and women are not different. I believe we are equal but different and I don't mean that in an exclusionary way (except perhaps to exclude men from child birth, which is pretty significant). People keep saying "the law of averages" ... 99% is a hell of an average. However, I do not begrudge others their opinions and am happy so many people weighed in on my dilemma.



I'm not saying that men and women are the same. I was addressing ascanius to point out that the aggregate differences between men and women (and there are many, including political beliefs, wages, educational attainment, risk-tolerance, communication style, illness prevalence, life expectancy, criminality, height, etc.) are _factually_ not applicable to every person on earth. Using the word "fact" to describe entire categories of people is almost always a good way to be wrong. Universal arguments only require one piece of counter-evidence to fail, and when it comes to gender, counter-evidence is _abundant_.

Most of the differences between men and women are not on the order of 99% prevalence, and a difference may be prevalent throughout the population while remaining a small difference. I am average height for a man, and thus taller than most women, but more than 1% of women are taller than me. 

The point is not that there aren't meaningful gender differences in the world--the point is that none of us are required to make sure our characters adhere to those differences, because there are _always_ exceptions. Also, if you have wizards in your world, it's worth pointing out that there is a 0% chance of those existing in real life, so a hugely buff, skull-crushing female berserker is pretty damn plausible by comparison.

Ursula K Le Guin once wrote that (paraphrasing here) many contemporary female protagonists in modern fantasy seem like men with breasts, to her. Meaning that they acted and thought and spoke in the ways men tend to. And I think that's a relevant concern--representing the aggregate differences is an important part of diversity, and I think it's authentic and even preferable to have female characters who differ from male characters in priorities, perceptions, values, etc., in ways that reflect common differences in real life. But I also think it's clear that not every character needs to differ in such a way--and that's important because it means gender-swapping your characters (if someone needs to) doesn't have to be a big hurdle.


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## Jabrosky

Nameback said:


> Ursula K Le Guin once wrote that (paraphrasing here) many contemporary female protagonists in modern fantasy seem like men with breasts, to her. Meaning that they acted and thought and spoke in the ways men tend to. And I think that's a relevant concern--representing the aggregate differences is an important part of diversity, and I think it's authentic and even preferable to have female characters who differ from male characters in priorities, perceptions, values, etc., in ways that reflect common differences in real life.


Excuse me, but the whole complaint about "female characters thinking like men with breasts" assumes that women in a given fantasy setting should have mindsets like those of aggregate women in our own culture. It doesn't take into account that a setting might have different ideas of gender from the one we're familiar with. If a fantasy culture has a longstanding tradition of gender equality, its women probably wouldn't think like those in an hierarchical and industrialized society that just started creeping away from patriarchy (i.e. modern Western culture).


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## Nameback

Jabrosky said:


> Excuse me, but the whole complaint about "female characters thinking like men with breasts" assumes that women in a given fantasy setting should have mindsets like those of aggregate women in our own culture. It doesn't take into account that a setting might have different ideas of gender from the one we're familiar with. If a fantasy culture has a longstanding tradition of gender equality, its women probably wouldn't think like those in an hierarchical and industrialized society that just started creeping away from patriarchy (i.e. modern Western culture).



True! Although I do think there's something to be said for having representation of a diverse array of real-world types of people in fiction--even in SFF. Now, I do think that includes highlighting modes of gender relations that characterized real historical cultures, and obviously many of them had far different gender roles/hierarchy than we do now, and many were more equitable than even we are today. But, personally, I like to keep that kind of stuff grounded in history, even if I am presenting something that differs substantially (in a positive way) from our present time and place in the West.

Edit: And given that nearly all cultures we have historical documentation for, other than hunter-gatherers, had at least _some_ kind of gendered division of labor, I think that in most plausible fantasy settings there will be at least some kind of influence that gender has on characters' lives and personalities, though that influence may vary substantially from place to place.

And, finally, there are some differences in aggregate behavior that do seem biological--like violent criminality, which is more common in men regardless of when or where you're looking at--so keeping that in mind when writing a setting with a different culture (but modern human biology) is probably worthwhile.


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## Trick

Nameback said:


> I'm not saying that men and women are the same. I was addressing ascanius to point out that the aggregate differences between men and women (and there are many, including political beliefs, wages, educational attainment, risk-tolerance, communication style, illness prevalence, life expectancy, criminality, height, etc.) are _factually_ not applicable to every person on earth. Using the word "fact" to describe entire categories of people is almost always a good way to be wrong. Universal arguments only require one piece of counter-evidence to fail, and when it comes to gender, counter-evidence is _abundant_.



I can see your point here and agree that these "norms" are not applicable to everyone on earth. I think that there are certain things I'll want to incorporate into my characters that are "standard" for the sake of readers identifying with them but creativity in character is a positive and thus can definitely break the norms.



Nameback said:


> The point is not that there aren't meaningful gender differences in the world--the point is that none of us are required to make sure our characters adhere to those differences, because there are _always_ exceptions. Also, if you have wizards in your world, it's worth pointing out that there is a 0% chance of those existing in real life, so a hugely buff, skull-crushing female berserker is pretty damn plausible by comparison.



Fair enough. I have no problem writing a female character who "seems like a man" but what I was going for was simply an increase in female presence in my book without doing so just to appease people. I found an existing character who will suit the purpose perfectly and she is not a "girly girl" so I think most people who like the book will like the change.


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## ascanius

Nameback said:


> That may sound extreme, but it actually happens! Perhaps most interesting about that story, the woman who was born without a cerebellum still managed to develop serviceable motor control, despite missing the _entirety_ of the most important part of the brain for executing movement.



Awsome article! and very interesting, going to have to see if there are any follow up research.  

But first I'm not an idiot I know there are exceptions in life.  I'm sorry it gets really annoying to make an argument and someone always says but what about this exception like I'm an idiot and don't know about exceptions.  However those exceptions have an explanation and most often they fit really nicely with what is already established.  Pointing out exceptions doesn't invalidate my entire point, Einstein was famous for this.  His relativity theory worked until an exception brought the entire theory crashing down.  Trying to get it to work he added the cosmological constant, turns out he simply didn't add a very important variable.  Hehe bad example they now think there may in fact be a cosmological constant, point is exceptions don't invalidate an argument.

Second my point in the entirety of my post was that it is a fact that males and females are biologically different both physically and mentally fact (see below not going to get into the mental aspect, its a lot of research papers to go through). 

Thirdly in my quote above everything you put down was exactly what I was getting at.  A persons biology is important we are not blank copies each other.  If a person is blind, that is determined by biology, or hell the fact that that woman was born without is cerebellum is based on her biology.  Biology determines everything about us and that was my point.  If a person has down syndrome that is solely due to their biology, trisomy 21, they have 3 chromosome 21.  blindness is not a social construct, it has a firm basis in biology even if it was caused by an accident there is a biological reason why we cannot fix it, yet.  Actually bad example we are very close to curing blindness. Maybe a better word instead of biology is genetics but you get what I'm saying.  People take into account height when writing their characters and that height affects little details, they take into account strength, skin color, hair color all have a biological/genetic basis.  Why does it cause some much angst to say something as important as sex should be taken into account too.



Nameback said:


> My point is this: scientific "facts" about humans are not actually "fact" for every human being on earth. Fact: humans have bilateral symmetry. Unless you're born without a left arm. Fact: humans rely heavily on sight to navigate the world. Unless you're blind. Fact: XY humans are male, and XX humans are female. Unless you are born with X, XXX, XXXX, XXXXX, XXXXY, XXY, XYY, XXYY, or are an XX male, or an XY female. And yes, all of those things happen.
> 
> Here's the thing about "scientific facts." The words _male_ and _female_, along with the categories they represent, are not _facts_. They do not exist independent of human minds who use those words and those categories to make sense of the world. Now, plenty of things exist whether we are here to acknowledge them or not, but _categories_ are a very human construction that we use to make decisions. Evaluating every human being individually without referencing useful generalizations would be impossible, which is why we evolved such an affinity for putting similar things into boxes.



This is called sex chromosome aneuploidy, can happen with non sex chromosomes too down-syndrome , in some species aneuploidy is actually what determines the biological sex though I cannot remember which, its really interesting.  When I first heard about aneuploidy I didn't think much about it, it wasn't until  I took cell and molecular bio that I learned about barr bodies.  Chromosomes controls gene expression with a number of different methods but it brings the question.  If males have XY and females have XX does this mean females have more chromosome expression of certain genes to create female characteristics or are males missing genes to create female characteristics.  answer X inactivation and the formation of barr bodies, basically a super-coiled X chromosome that isn't used, some good research on which X chromosome is chosen FYI.  Only one X chromosome is used which makes it very difficult to identify because their phenotype is no different than that of a normal XX genotype, basically it creates no difference between the two.  Even if you have XXXXX only one X is used.  This changes a little bit in males where problems do occur with Y chromosome aneuploidy, but guess what they are still male that Y chromosome determines a lot.  What this means is that sex is determined by the sole presence or lack thereof of the Y chromosome.  And this is scientific FACT that has nothing to do with averages.



Nameback said:


> The problem is that, because these categories don't actually reflect the extreme detail and nuance of reality, but rather reflect our needs for generalization and decision-making, they _inevitably_ hit upon cases that don't fit precisely into either box, and we're left trying to shove someone who doesn't fit into our preconceptions. To make that idea concrete, look up how doctors in the US used to advise surgery for intersex people to make them "properly" male or female (here's a hint: it didn't usually turn out well).



Also as to the point about intersexed people the most common practice was/is to go towards female due to simplicity for the a*****e doctor, my assumption.  And no this topic is not new to me and FYI this wasn't/isn't just a problem in the US but is/was common practice throughout the world.  However everything I said above still stands save for one case.  Hermaphrodism is caused by fertilization and embryonic issues along with mutations SRY gene which controls development of male sexual organs "testis" and saying controls is simplifying a lot but it is not caused by aneuploidy, which is what I'm assuming you though.  The interesting thing is a lot of time what you get is a mosaic of certain cells can be from one person and others for another, there was a whole CSI episode revolving around a guy who had this.  In that case a person can have certain cells that are female and certain cells that are male.  I don't know how the competing hormone regulations of the differing cells affects the physiology of the person to comment so it might be the one case where you may be right.  My best guess is that it is going to depend on the dominant cell type having the greatest influence on physiology.  But my point still stands that biology is the determining factor.  Actually this would be a great research topic.



Nameback said:


> So, no. The "facts" of gender are, _in fact_, averages, generalities, roughlys, usuallys, most-of-the-times, typicallys, and rules of thumb. They are not absolutes. They are not universals--and that's a fact.



In this you are correct "gender", a category as you explained above, is in "fact" averages, generalities, etc.  This is because the term gender, as we now use it, being coined by a feminist in the past 20 yearsish for an article choose to use a "grammatical" term for biological sex to argue that male and female are socially constructed categories, like gender is a linguistical category for words.  This leaves us with the socially and political new category of gender that by it's inception was meant to be all those things you say above.  But I was never arguing about gender I was arguing about sex differences.  My point stands and I enjoyed reading your post they were thought provoking and you make a lot of good points.  Liked  the Liguin refrence.


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## ascanius

Nameback said:


> The point is not that there aren't meaningful gender differences in the world--the point is that none of us are required to make sure our characters adhere to those differences, because there are _always_ exceptions. Also, if you have wizards in your world, it's worth pointing out that there is a 0% chance of those existing in real life, so a hugely buff, skull-crushing female berserker is pretty damn plausible by comparison.



O common that's like saying gravity doesn't exist because birds fly, or penguins aren't birds because they cannot fly and in my story because penguins don't fly I can call them purple smirfitcus because there are exceptions and because there are exceptions I can call eagles penguins and ostriches ravens, and the raven the broke its wing and cannot fly is now a penguin.  I know I can simply because I can write what I want to but but that is completely different from what your getting at, plz



Jabrosky said:


> Ursula K Le Guin once wrote that (paraphrasing here) many contemporary female protagonists in modern fantasy seem like men with breasts, to her. Meaning that they acted and thought and spoke in the ways men tend to. And I think that's a relevant concern--representing the aggregate differences is an important part of diversity, and I think it's authentic and even preferable to have female characters who differ from male characters in priorities, perceptions, values, etc., in ways that reflect common differences in real life. But I also think it's clear that not every character needs to differ in such a way--and that's important because it means gender-swapping your characters (if someone needs to) doesn't have to be a big hurdle.



I give up.


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## cupiscent

Legendary Sidekick said:


> I guess a question I would ask is: if you had a bunch of women, would you throw in a guy just because?



This question is a little over-innocent, because it supposes that there isn't a long history in popular media of men's stories being privileged and represented and prioritised over women's stories. Our starting situation is not equal.

But overall, I don't think "quotas" are helpful. But thinking about why your story has no/few women, and whether that's something worth working on and/or making part of the story, and what decisions you made consciously or unconsciously to get to this position, is all very important.


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## ascanius

cupiscent said:


> This question is a little over-innocent, because it supposes that there isn't a long history in popular media of men's stories being privileged and represented and prioritised over women's stories. Our starting situation is not equal.
> 
> But overall, I don't think "quotas" are helpful. But thinking about why your story has no/few women, and whether that's something worth working on and/or making part of the story, and what decisions you made consciously or unconsciously to get to this position, is all very important.



I totally agree.  Though I would probably write the story about women only and restrict my setting to a small group of women with the sole focus being on them and their troubles, hopes etc, they wouldn't be in a vacuum but all male characters would be part of the setting.  The same can be done with an all male cast.  I would have no problem reading both.


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## Nameback

ascanius said:


> Awsome article! and very interesting, going to have to see if there are any follow up research.
> 
> But first I'm not an idiot I know there are exceptions in life.  I'm sorry it gets really annoying to make an argument and someone always says but what about this exception like I'm an idiot and don't know about exceptions.  However those exceptions have an explanation and most often they fit really nicely with what is already established.  Pointing out exceptions doesn't invalidate my entire point



Well, if your point is that people should write male and female characters a particular way that is representative of the norm, then it does invalidate your point. There's nothing stopping anyone from writing about the exception--in fact, that's usually what we write about: exceptional people. Kings and nobles were hardly the norm, but they get plenty of representation in fantasy.

You could say that it was a historical fact that people in 200 AD had a life expectancy below 40, the overwhelming majority were farmers who lived in rural villages, and they had very little control over the forces that affected their lives. Those things are all true, all "facts." But who wants to write about a farmer in some peasant village who dies at 35 of tetanus after doing nothing particularly interesting? We'd rather write about people living in cities, or fighting in armies, wielding influence and changing the course of events. 

By the same token, there's nothing wrong with writing about, say, a black person in a medieval-European type setting, or a woman who is a brilliant warrior. Such people have indeed existed, and there's no objective reason why it's somehow more "factual" to write about the minuscule portion of the population who were kings than to write about warrior women. 



> But I was never arguing about gender I was arguing about sex differences.  My point stands and I enjoyed reading your post they were thought provoking and you make a lot of good points.  Liked  the Liguin refrence.



Well, again though, sex is complicated too, as we both discussed, with lots of room for variation. Like I said, women are far less likely to commit violent crime than men, and I don't see any explanation for the historical and global consistency of that fact other than biology, but _there are still women murderers_. There are even women serial killers. There are women drug dealers and robbers and all the rest. So, there's nothing wrong about writing characters who differ from the average. 

I mean, have you ever heard of Griselda Blanco? She was one of the heads of the Medellin cartel and probably in the top 0.001% of sociopathy and violence in the human population. So, when a person wants to write a character like this, why not? In fact, the exceptionality of someone like Griselda is part of what makes her so fascinating and worth writing about.


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## Nameback

ascanius said:


> O common that's like saying gravity doesn't exist because birds fly, or penguins aren't birds because they cannot fly and in my story because penguins don't fly I can call them purple smirfitcus because there are exceptions and because there are exceptions I can call eagles penguins and ostriches ravens, and the raven the broke its wing and cannot fly is now a penguin.  I know I can simply because I can write what I want to but but that is completely different from what your getting at, plz



I don't understand this at all.


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## Nihal

I have serious questions to anyone who argues that females are biologically different beings that deviate from _normal people_:

What exactly makes you think *men are the default*? What makes you deny your female characters the right to individual (true) characterization? Why male characters can be individuals, people shaped by the experiences, with their own aspirations, but women, these three-headed biologically different creatures are bound to dubious conclusions of what they're supposed to be? If they're not, _their existence is justified as an anomaly_.

For you're not even attempting to establish differences. You're establishing women as deviations from your idea of regular people. Oh, dear, you're focusing on the wrong side of this!

I tell you with all the honesty that this current of thought is revolting—if not downright insulting—and flawed, and I won't mention what I'd do (or not do) to books from authors who I knew thought this way, lest it becomes a huge flame war. The truth is that in the few posts there I tried to keep civil, for it's not my intention to offend anyone, thus I avoided mentioning certain things, yet at this point you should be made aware that this whole concept is offensive. It's worse than the lack of females, or token females. We're entering in the territory of stereotypical females, cardboard females, agency-less females (for if they're slaves to their "biology" they lack personal character). Those are the worse to put up with.


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## Svrtnsse

I haven't really followed this thread for a while, but has it really come to the point where someone has to point out that women are actually people too?


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## Mythopoet

Nihal said:


> I have serious questions to anyone who argues that females are biologically different beings that deviate from _normal people_:
> 
> What exactly makes you think *men are the default*? What makes you deny your female characters the right to individual (true) characterization? Why male characters can be individuals, people shaped by the experiences, with their own aspirations, but women, these three-headed biologically different creatures are bound to dubious conclusions of what they're supposed to be? If they're not, _their existence is justified as an anomaly_.
> 
> For you're not even attempting to establish differences. You're establishing women as deviations from your idea of regular people. Oh, dear, you're focusing on the wrong side of this!
> 
> I tell you with all the honesty that this current of thought is revolting—if not downright insulting—and flawed, and I won't mention what I'd do (or not do) to books from authors who I knew thought this way, lest it becomes a huge flame war. The truth is that in the few posts there I tried to keep civil, for it's not my intention to offend anyone, thus I avoided mentioning certain things, yet at this point you should be made aware that this whole concept is offensive. It's worse than the lack of females, or token females. We're entering in the territory of stereotypical females, cardboard females, agency-less females (for if they're slaves to their "biology" they lack personal character). Those are the worse to put up with.



I think you need to be specific about who exactly you think is arguing for this. I have also not continued following the thread, but I find it highly dubious that anyone here would actually say what you are claiming people are saying. I'm inclined to believe that either you've grossly misunderstood someone or you're arguing against a strawman you've seen trotted out somewhere.


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## Valentinator

I don't understand the negativity about describing women in an old-fashioned feminine way. I mean, men are often described in a classic masculine way with all manly stereotypes and stuff. The mere fact that there are women who act like men doesn't change the notion that there are plenty of women who behave differently. Forcing equal standards on both genders seems to me as an oversimplification. Gender is a part of human identity and can not be ignored.


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## ascanius

Nihal said:


> I have serious questions to anyone who argues that females are biologically different beings that deviate from _normal people_:
> 
> What exactly makes you think *men are the default*? What makes you deny your female characters the right to individual (true) characterization? Why male characters can be individuals, people shaped by the experiences, with their own aspirations, but women, these three-headed biologically different creatures are bound to dubious conclusions of what they're supposed to be? If they're not, _their existence is justified as an anomaly_.
> 
> For you're not even attempting to establish differences. You're establishing women as deviations from your idea of regular people. Oh, dear, you're focusing on the wrong side of this!
> 
> I tell you with all the honesty that this current of thought is revolting—if not downright insulting—and flawed, and I won't mention what I'd do (or not do) to books from authors who I knew thought this way, lest it becomes a huge flame war. The truth is that in the few posts there I tried to keep civil, for it's not my intention to offend anyone, thus I avoided mentioning certain things, yet at this point you should be made aware that this whole concept is offensive. It's worse than the lack of females, or token females. We're entering in the territory of stereotypical females, cardboard females, agency-less females (for if they're slaves to their "biology" they lack personal character). Those are the worse to put up with.



Hi Nihal I can see this has upset you and I do think you misunderstood the past few posts, you're not alone though.   I think Nameback and I are also misunderstanding each other.  It basically boils down to me saying males and females are biologically different and those differences are an important factor and should be considered when writing a character. Nameback, from what I understand, is saying that biology is not important.  I do want to say that I am not advocating biology as an excuse for stereotypical female characters, I would never insult science in such a way, nor my sisters or mother.  I apologize if I gave that impression.  While I would like to explain what I mean, I can't right now, maybe later, but I do ask for a chance to explain what I'm getting at before you write me off as a sexist nutjob.  Again I'm sorry for the misunderstanding and others here know I've had my moments of misunderstandings and lost my cool, it happens.


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## Nameback

Nihal said:


> I have serious questions to anyone who argues that females are biologically different beings that deviate from _normal people_:
> 
> What exactly makes you think *men are the default*? What makes you deny your female characters the right to individual (true) characterization? Why male characters can be individuals, people shaped by the experiences, with their own aspirations, but women, these three-headed biologically different creatures are bound to dubious conclusions of what they're supposed to be? If they're not, _their existence is justified as an anomaly_.



I'm not sure if this is directed at me, but I think it might be? If so, I just want to clarify that I wasn't suggesting women as a whole deviate from a male norm. I was saying that, e.g. women in combat deviate from a modern, Western _norm of female behavior_ and a _norm of soldiery_ (although that is changing in America, now). Or that e.g. women serial killers deviate from the norm of serial killers (who are almost always male). Not that women, as a whole, differ from "the norm," but rather that in certain fields of endeavor the women present in said field are exceptional to a varying degree.

The same can of course be said of men in many fields of endeavor also, like primary school teaching, or, increasingly, going to college. Norms are fluid and change all the time and men violate them too--I was focusing on women because of the topic of the thread, but obviously there are men who are exceptions to norms as well.

Norms are, of course, often nothing to praise or be proud of, especially gender norms, so contravening a gender norm is hardly a bad thing. Usually it's a good thing, whether done by men or women, if for no other reason that it undermines said norm (which is, almost by definition, restrictive and stifles human achievement). 

My other point is that most of the characters we write about are exceptional, in one way or another, so what's wrong with a character who's an exception to gender norms? Why should that kind of exceptionality be treated any differently than the exceptionality of a king, or a great wizard, or a Chosen One, or whatever else? I was trying to illustrate that the same people who call a gender-norm-breaking female character inauthentic are usually perfectly happy to read about a whole cast of characters who are anything but normal, and that's inconsistent and politically motivated. Exceptional people are fun to write about--people who are _different_ are exciting and usually going to encounter lots of conflict. Sometimes people are exceptional for, among other reasons, going against the gender norms of their time--and suggesting that this particular kind of exceptionality is inauthentic while other kinds are authentic is disingenuous nonsense.



> It's worse than the lack of females, or token females. We're entering in the territory of stereotypical females, cardboard females, agency-less females (for if they're slaves to their "biology" they lack personal character). Those are the worse to put up with.



On the note of biology, I will also clarify that I think sex-determinists are vastly overstating their case, especially when you look at the tremendous historical variety of gender expression and gender hierarchy throughout world history. Gender expression is clearly shaped primarily by social factors--but there's a few things that do seem to be universal, like the aforementioned difference in murder rates between men and women. And, of course, biologically-mediated behavior applies both to men and women; saying women are biologically predisposed to be less murderous implies that men are biologically predisposed to be more murderous. It doesn't act any more strongly on women than on men, and of course even biological predispositions are mediated through experience, culture, and incentives, and can be overruled. To continue harping on murder, obviously the murder rate is a fraction of what it used to be, historically, thanks to innovations like modern police forces and court systems--so while human beings (and men especially) may be born with an inclination to use violence to get what we want, we're also able to erect social systems to divert, sublimate, or otherwise suppress many of our inborn tendencies. Biology is not destiny, and I'm not arguing that it is, unlike ascanius.

Personally, I'm a pretty aggressive feminist and I don't see acknowledging a few narrow differences in biology (average differences, with tons of exceptions) between men and women as undermining gender equality. If you could blow up patriarchy and gender peformativity tomorrow, I doubt men and women would cease to demonstrate any aggregate differences in behavior--far, far fewer, certainly, but probably not none, and that's just fine. Difference, of course, is not inferiority. If anything, what biologically-rooted differences there may be tend not to be good looks for men--like the prevalence of sociopathy being much higher in men.

I have a female protag and my cast of important characters is majority female, although the setting is in a society with gender oppression. This means most of the female characters are "exceptional" in some way, relative to their society's norms, but that just makes them more compelling, as far as I'm concerned. People who fight the tide of their society are interesting.


----------



## Devor

Nihal said:


> I have serious questions to anyone who argues that females are biologically different beings that deviate from _normal people_:
> 
> What exactly makes you think *men are the default*? What makes you deny your female characters the right to individual (true) characterization? Why male characters can be individuals, people shaped by the experiences, with their own aspirations, but women, these three-headed biologically different creatures are bound to dubious conclusions of what they're supposed to be? If they're not, _their existence is justified as an anomaly_.



I don't think it's a stretch to think this is at least a little directed at my posts from before.

When I write, I have to constantly ask myself,"How is this character different from me?"  If I don't, I'm at risk of projecting my own personality onto my characters.  I don't want to do that.  It's not that men are the default and women are weird.  It's more of an effort to detach from myself and focus on how I need to change my own thinking to understand someone else.

From a biological perspective, it's actually the female brain that's the default and "normal," and the male brain that's a little weird because it's changed in a testosterone bath.  In a very real but subtle way, it's the male brain that's often missing something, and sometimes has trouble figuring out what that is.




> For you're not even attempting to establish differences. You're establishing women as deviations from your idea of regular people. Oh, dear, you're focusing on the wrong side of this!



I would love to talk about the differences.  I think they boil down to three tangible things.  But I'm not sure that would improve the tone of the conversation.  I think it would make it more contentious.

Regardless, the most important difference to understand is testosterone. Testosterone makes you feel powerful and take risks, and it suppresses the stress hormone cortisol.  Testosterone is why men often get bored and spend hundreds of dollars on console games to excite them, while women often feel tense and seek passtimes to help them relax.  But it's also the most fluid, the most readily changed by society and by your own actions.  Even if women have less testosterone by default, that can change over time based on your upbringing and your choices.

Here's an excellent Ted talk about Testosterone:

Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are | Talk Video | TED.com

I don't think about testosterone when I write.  It's too fluid to really focus on.

Maybe I'll try and talk about the other differences later on.  I don't know.  But everyone should understand testosterone for their own benefit, as the Ted talk mentions above.


----------



## Nihal

It's not directed to a single person in particular, it's a rant about this new sex-deterministic trend. It has been popping up frequently of late. As you said, Nameback, it's _at least_ grossly overstating any weight those "facts" may have.

There are so many disturbing issues in relying on those ideas. Here is an example of how it negatively affects writing:

Women are "more" or "less" prone to something–more than who? You need a control group, a default to compare to and reach these conclusions. It's the "male default" I mentioned. Many people established it in their minds  without even knowing. This is the root of the lack of diversity, of too few females and of all the related issues.

Because you have a standard here you'll automatically fall in it first every time you create a character. If a writer overestimates the sex weight in one's character, and also confuses it with societal expectations and societal norms (which *aren't* a true part of gender identity, they are a pressure, but they're external), s/he will be pushed to determine the sex right away.

Then, instead of shaping the character based on the past, the relationships, the goals, this poor writer will be "oh, this character can't be like that because a woman/man doesn't do that", or even "this character doesn't conform to what is expected of a man/woman" (frankly, how many of *us* fully fit the roles of our genders? How many even care?). If one personality trait is too different from what a man/woman ought to have but it must remain this way, then this poor writer will feel compelled to cheaply justify this anomalous creature's existence. E.g.: The girl picks a lot of fights. Physical fights. Oh, she grew up with a lot of brothers and she had no mother and no "feminine" role to follow at all.

And, if by happenstance the character came to life to fill a certain role before anything else, unless the role is being a romantic interest or something strongly linked to one gender stereotype the character will most likely have the "default" gender, otherwise the writer would need to justify anything that doesn't fit those "biological facts", and the story may not have room for it, or the writer might be lazy, etc.

Can you see where I'm getting at?


*Valentinator*, because the old fashioned way is the biased way? Do you have any idea of how many women were erased from the history? In fact, what makes an attribute "masculine"? How come a behaviour pattern became gendered?


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## Tom

Good God, this blew up fast. I try to stay out of hot-button discussions, but this time I have something to say. 

Poor Trick. Trick asked an innocent question, and all of a sudden everyone is discussing something only remotely related to the OP. 

I for one think you're doing the right thing, Trick. A character can't be forced into another role if they've already asserted themselves to you as male or female, one ethnicity or the other, whatever. Giving a female character--who was originally conceived of as female--a strong role is an excellent idea.


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## Nameback

Nihal, I agree that the issue of a male default is something to combat in one's writing, and I think most of us are susceptible to it regardless of ideology. It's the same thing with the white default (although that one is probably even more pronounced). 

To repeat myself a bit, this is why I recommend all writers who are concerned with such things to make a conscious, deliberate effort to put in more female (and non-white, and queer, and disabled) characters. I actually think quotas can be really useful. For instance, I noticed at one early point in writing my novel that I didn't pass the Bechdel test. I'd written 20,000+ words, and had a female protagonist, yet I didn't pass. Now, that particular test isn't the be-all and end-all of gender parity, and it's meant mainly to represent a larger point, but I just decided to deliberately change one character's gender so that it passed, and it made me more conscious of looking for female character opportunities going forward. Which, really, is the point of things like the Bechdel test--to get you to think critically about gender and be consciously aware of the choices you're making instead of being led by bias. 

People tend to feel very negatively towards quotas or other ways of _deliberately_ adjusting one's work to achieve diversity, but that's pernicious and dangerous, I think. Not too get too political, I hope, but studies continue to show that _identical _resumes with different names (one "black" name and one "white" name) will get different callback rates based on how "black" the name sounds. I don't really see how else one can combat or account for such things without taking explicit, deliberate, conscious steps to counteract it, as in affirmative action hiring policies. 

The thing about unconscious bias is that it's unconscious. It's very hard--maybe impossible--to know if your evaluation of someone or something is biased, or if it's a fair appraisal. You can think about it and agonize over it and try to work out what your motivations are--or you can just assume you're a human being, and therefore influenced by your society like everyone else, and take practical, conscious steps to counteract bias.

Edit: This applies, obviously, to writing characters. Assume you're a bit biased, that you've internalized some societal defaults, and decide for yourself if you're happy being led by the nose by your socialization or if you want to be consciously in control of your own work.


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## Steerpike

Nihal said:


> Then, instead of shaping the character based on the past, the relationships, the goals, this poor writer will be "oh, this character can't be like that because a woman/man doesn't do that", or even "this character doesn't conform to what is expected of a man/woman" (frankly, how many of *us* fully fit the roles of our genders?



Yep. It's a big mistake that some writers make, in my view. It goes back to what I was saying about writers not remembering that their character is an individual and instead treating them like a statistical distribution of probabilities (which, ironically, only seems to happen when people are dealing with gender, although you could certainly find stats to give you distributions for just about any group - whites v. blacks, older white males, people of asian descent. You never heard anyone say "Oh, I can't write this person that way because a black man wouldn't behave that way. When it comes to females, though, the fallacy stampedes ahead).


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## cupiscent

I'm not going to say what people must or mustn't do with their own writing - I might suggest things to consider, but our relationship with our writing is our own - but personally, I disagree with this:


Tom Nimenai said:


> A character can't be forced into another role if they've already asserted themselves to you as male or female, one ethnicity or the other, whatever.


I made these people, I can take 'em apart and remake them in a more interesting way. No, it's probably not as simple as "switch", because the new aspects of character will have impact on how that character fits into society. I might have to tweak some other elements as well to ensure that character can still fulfill the function they have in the story. But I look at my characters all the time - hell, I'm looking at a completed, polished, has-been-sent-to-agents novel right now - and ask, "Would this be more interesting if you were a different gender/race/sexual orientation?"

You invented these people. They aren't inviolate.


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## Trick

cupiscent said:


> You invented these people. They aren't inviolate.



I read it as it being more natural and easier on the author, which might produce better work.


----------



## Tom

cupiscent said:


> I'm not going to say what people must or mustn't do with their own writing - I might suggest things to consider, but our relationship with our writing is our own - but personally, I disagree with this:
> 
> I made these people, I can take 'em apart and remake them in a more interesting way. No, it's probably not as simple as "switch", because the new aspects of character will have impact on how that character fits into society. I might have to tweak some other elements as well to ensure that character can still fulfill the function they have in the story. But I look at my characters all the time - hell, I'm looking at a completed, polished, has-been-sent-to-agents novel right now - and ask, "Would this be more interesting if you were a different gender/race/sexual orientation?"
> 
> You invented these people. They aren't inviolate.



I'm all for it if it works for you, but I myself find it unnatural to take a character who came to me this way and make them that way just to suit the plot. I might do it if the character didn't fit into the story without some tweaking, but if I had to switch anything as major as gender, ethnicity, core personality aspects, etc., I'd get the sense that the character isn't meant to fit in that story. Trying to fit a character into a story he/she's not meant for is like a kid trying repeatedly to jam a block into a shaped hole it isn't supposed to go in. Instead of hacking essential parts out of the character in an attempt to make them "fit", I'd simply put them in a story that suited them better.

Thank you, kind sir, for giving me a chance to exercise my debating skills. I'm sick and stuck at home today, so having something to stimulate my thoughts is doing wonders for my mental state.


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## Svrtnsse

I found it quite amusing that so many people felt targeted by the "remember that women are people too" comment. Admittedly, I asked myself as well if I'd written something to that effect, here or elsewhere. I probably have.


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## Tom

Svrtnsse said:


> I found it quite amusing that so many people felt targeted by the "remember that women are people too" comment. Admittedly, I asked myself as well if I'd written something to that effect, here or elsewhere. I probably have.



Amusing in what way?


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## Svrtnsse

There was this serious discussion going on about something or other relevant to personality/physiology/representation/etc. It seemed quite involved. Then Nihal stops by, drops a bomb, and there's at least three posts saying something like "oops, that might have been me, sorry".
It's like everyone got carried away by the act of discussing/debating and then got reminded of the actual topic itself.

Then again, if you don't find that kind of thing amusing, you'd probably not agree.


----------



## Mythopoet

Nihal said:


> It's not directed to a single person in particular, it's a rant about this new sex-deterministic trend. It has been popping up frequently of late.



Historically and culturally, the "men and women are the same and if you say they're not that's sexist!" trend is the brand spanking new one. 





> Women are "more" or "less" prone to something–more than who? You need a control group, a default to compare to and reach these conclusions. It's the "male default" I mentioned. Many people established it in their minds  without even knowing. This is the root of the lack of diversity, of too few females and of all the related issues.



Obviously women would be "more or less prone to something" than men. But at the same time when talking about men, they would be "more or less prone to something" than women. It's not about having a "default" or a "control group". It's simply comparing and contrasting the two sexes against each other. There is nothing wrong with making comparisons or identifying contrasts between the sexes.



> Because you have a standard here you'll automatically fall in it first every time you create a character. If a writer overestimates the sex weight in one's character, and also confuses it with societal expectations and societal norms (which *aren't* a true part of gender identity, they are a pressure, but they're external), s/he will be pushed to determine the sex right away.



So you're saying because authors _might_ confuse biological differences with societal expectations they should just pretend that biological difference don't exist? Better safe than sorry? Are we completely disregarding the possibility that authors might be able to take biological differences into account without confusing them with societal expectations? 

Furthermore, are authors not allowed to consider societal expectation in their settings? Are they meant to create characters in a vacuum before plopping them down into a setting and situation?



> Then, instead of shaping the character based on the past, the relationships, the goals, this poor writer will be "oh, this character can't be like that because a woman/man doesn't do that", or even "this character doesn't conform to what is expected of a man/woman" (frankly, how many of *us* fully fit the roles of our genders? How many even care?). If one personality trait is too different from what a man/woman ought to have but it must remain this way, then this poor writer will feel compelled to cheaply justify this anomalous creature's existence. E.g.: The girl picks a lot of fights. Physical fights. Oh, she grew up with a lot of brothers and she had no mother and no "feminine" role to follow at all.
> 
> And, if by happenstance the character came to life to fill a certain role before anything else, unless the role is being a romantic interest or something strongly linked to one gender stereotype the character will most likely have the "default" gender, otherwise the writer would need to justify anything that doesn't fit those "biological facts", and the story may not have room for it, or the writer might be lazy, etc.
> 
> Can you see where I'm getting at?



For someone arguing that all characters should be shaped by their past, relationships, goals, etc. you are making an awful lot of negative, blanket assumptions about what your fellow writers will and won't do while creating characters. Maybe you should step back for a moment and consider that like fictional characters, all authors are different and are all shaped by their environment, upbringing, relationships, dreams and, yes, even their biology. Every author will approach characterization differently. 

Personally, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I like to think that every person who loves to write stories also loves to create characters and really tries hard to create characters that are interesting and vibrant and real. Though in the end, not every author's efforts will be equal. 

Still, I don't think it's the right of writers to tell other writers they're doing it wrong. You can say "your characters aren't interesting to me" or "I wish there were more women in your story" or "I really didn't like the way this character was portrayed" or whatever you felt as a reader of the work. But no writer has the right to tell another writer how to write their stories, period. Story quality is too personal and subjective. You don't have to like another writer's work, but you don't have the right to tell them it's wrong or bad.


----------



## Tom

> Originally posted by *Svrtnsse*
> _There was this serious discussion going on about something or other relevant to personality/physiology/representation/etc. It seemed quite involved. Then Nihal stops by, drops a bomb, and there's at least three posts saying something like "oops, that might have been me, sorry".
> It's like everyone got carried away by the act of discussing/debating and then got reminded of the actual topic itself.
> 
> Then again, if you don't find that kind of thing amusing, you'd probably not agree_.



I found it amusing, in the sense that sitting back to watch the fallout is both amusing, frustrating, and oddly satisfying at the same time.

Maybe we should take our discussion somewhere else, though, and stop cluttering up Trick's thread, eh?


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## Devor

Nihal said:


> Because you have a standard here you'll automatically fall in it first every time you create a character. If a writer overestimates the sex weight in one's character, and also confuses it with societal expectations and societal norms (which *aren't* a true part of gender identity, they are a pressure, but they're external), s/he will be pushed to determine the sex right away.



I just want to say, I see stereotyped female characters all the time - the kid shows are just awful about it - and if I sound like those are the kinds of characters I want to write, then I'm coming off all wrong.  A stereotype is what you write by default because you're not thinking.  If anything, by considering a couple of the real and very subtle differences when I look at female characters, it dispels the nonsense and makes me feel far more capable of opening up the character and delving into them in ways that are actually important.  That is, the goal is to _*not*_ stereotype, to *break or diminish* that sense of "otherness," and to *develop* the character in a way that feels more complete.

If that's not what people are hearing from me, then I'm not being clear enough.




Tom Nimenai said:


> Maybe we should take our discussion somewhere else, though, and stop cluttering up Trick's thread, eh?



I don't think it matters.  I think Trick's question was answered pretty well, and if we stopped or moved the discussion, the thread would just be dead.


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## Mythopoet

Devor said:


> A stereotype is what you write by default because you're not thinking.



Just going by what I've witnessed, I think a more accurate definition of the way most people use the word "stereotype" is "what you call something that you've seen more than once and that you didn't like". Too many people decide that something is a stereotype because it doesn't work for them personally, they never take into consideration all the people it does work for. 

Seriously, you're making a BIG assumption here. You're assuming that people who write something you think of as a stereotype are not thinking. What's your evidence of that? That if _you_ thought about it _you_ wouldn't write it that way? That does not mean the writer wasn't thinking. It more likely means that they thought about it differently than you.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Legendary Sidekick said:


> I guess a question I would ask is: if you had a bunch of women, would you throw in a guy just because?





cupiscent said:


> This question is a little over-innocent, because it supposes that there isn't a long history in popular media of men's stories being privileged and represented and prioritised over women's stories. Our starting situation is not equal.
> 
> But overall, I don't think "quotas" are helpful. But thinking about why your story has no/few women, and whether that's something worth working on and/or making part of the story, and what decisions you made consciously or unconsciously to get to this position, is all very important.


When I asked that question, my point was that I think while some people might do (or be annoyed by) this…


Nihal said:


> token females


…I doubt any one in this discussion would write a story about, say, four woman warriors, then say, "Uh-oh. I better get a male POV character in this story. Maybe I'll take one of the existing characters and turn her into a guy. Problem solved!"


For the record, I simply write characters and not worry so much about race, gender, age… the characters are who I see them as when I create them. They don't need to fit into any kind of stereotype or fit a quota. I won't change a character's race or gender to someone s/he is not, though I might cut, add or replace a character.

I have the feeling most—if not all—in this discussion do exactly that. (The difference might be to what degree gender and such matters as you write the character's decisions, actions, place in society, etc.)


EDIT - My last paragraph put far more eloquently:


Mythopoet said:


> That does not mean the writer wasn't thinking. It more likely means that they thought about it differently than you.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Trick? Who's Trick and what's he doing in our thread? 

Just kidding. Trick posted a while back he'd resolved the issue he asked about originally and since then the thread has taken off elsewhere.

---

I do think it's an interesting topic though, and there's a few different discussions going on here. I can see where both Nihal and Mythopoet are coming from. Both about how women in fiction can come across as "deviations from the norm", and about how you shouldn't be telling others how to write. They're both good points.

One thing that I come across now and then when discussing ideas that people have about things is that they say "it's like this cool thing, but except for that thing it has this other thing instead". It's easy to describe things and concepts as variations or modifications of other things. This doesn't apply to just writing, but to all kinds of things.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

What I think you need to keep in mind when you do it this way (it's like this, but...) is all of the free baggage you're getting. In the case of male/female, is it really fair, or even possible to go: "a man is like a woman, except..." or the other way around?
Depending on how you do, you can probably pull it off, but for individuals and characters I'm not sure I'd recommend it.


----------



## Devor

Mythopoet said:


> Just going by what I've witnessed, I think a more accurate definition of the way most people use the word "stereotype" is "what you call something that you've seen more than once and that you didn't like". Too many people decide that something is a stereotype because it doesn't work for them personally, they never take into consideration all the people it does work for.
> 
> Seriously, you're making a BIG assumption here. You're assuming that people who write something you think of as a stereotype are not thinking. What's your evidence of that? That if _you_ thought about it _you_ wouldn't write it that way? That does not mean the writer wasn't thinking. It more likely means that they thought about it differently than you.



The stereotypes I was referring to, in the kids' shows, are pretty bad, not because they have women who want to shop and I don't like it (that's the one that was on here just now), but because they boil down the entire character to that minuscule and annoying trait.  They keep it simple for the kids, and I think they go overboard.  I think it sets a bad example.  On the other hand, Lilly, from _How I Met Your Mother_, shopped a lot, and it was sometimes an amusing part of a much richer character.

I don't care if some women shop a lot.  I certainly don't count it as a biological difference.  And I can't see it ever being featuring in a story of mine.  But I didn't mean to discredit women who might shop or reasonable portrayals of those women who do.

The remark about stereotyping - it's only one definition of the word, and I was only making the case for being more thoughtful of the differences.  If I don't think about it, and go with those first instincts, then those first instincts are more likely to be stereotypes, based on other things I've seen and read, because I didn't think it through.  I didn't mean to imply that level of philosophical rigor behind it, suggesting that everyone everywhere who portrays these kinds of people aren't thinking about it.

At the same time, I'm going to stand by the assertion that many of the kids shows are just awful about portraying women fairly.


----------



## Mythopoet

Devor said:


> At the same time, I'm going to stand by the assertion that many of the kids shows are just awful about portraying women fairly.



But you're still not going to give any evidence for the claim. 

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but making such a broad claim without backing it up at all with anything concrete is not a good way to make an argument. Nor is making a statement about "you, in general" that you don't actually mean to apply to "you, in general".


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## Nihal

No, Mythopoet, I'm not dictating how one should write, it was one example of how those accidental male-less/female-less scenarios happen and how relying on those statistics can worsen the problem instead of helping to overcome it.

No, I'm not saying that biological differences don't matter at all, I'm saying they're overestimated. Hugely overestimated by some people (no, it's not directed to anyone here, it's more along the lines of the character who only shops), at the point it's the only thing that matters. Didn't I mention the "overestimation" it in the last two posts?

And as a sidenote I'm pointing out that attempting to fit whole groups of people in these averages—biology taking precedence over individualization—can be insulting to readers belonging to these groups. 


By the way, the only reason I spoke more freely is that Trick already solved his issue, and in an effective way by removing a redundant character.


----------



## cupiscent

Tom Nimenai said:


> Thank you, kind sir, for giving me a chance to exercise my debating skills. I'm sick and stuck at home today, so having something to stimulate my thoughts is doing wonders for my mental state.



It's ma'am, but you're welcome. 

And isn't it interesting how our processes as writers differ? I am very much a story-first writer, so I play with the elements of characters to get the mix that will drive a more intricate, interesting and effective story. I would never think of considering a character separate from a story (though once the story is finished, s/he might now be established enough to wander off and have other adventures). Though that said, there will always be the elements that are intrinsic to the character within this story concept, but for me gender is never one of them. A relationship of power or an essential element of history might suggest strongly one gender or another, but those are the instances where my contrary brain starts generating interesting ways to go against the obvious choice.


----------



## cupiscent

Mythopoet said:


> But you're still not going to give any evidence for the claim.
> 
> I don't necessarily disagree with you, but making such a broad claim without backing it up at all with anything concrete is not a good way to make an argument. Nor is making a statement about "you, in general" that you don't actually mean to apply to "you, in general".



There's a whole other thread on these forums where no one can think of a female instance of a mentor that isn't Granny Weatherwax. How's that?


----------



## Valentinator

> *Valentinator*, because the old fashioned way is the biased way? Do you have any idea of how many women were erased from the history? In fact, what makes an attribute "masculine"? How come a behaviour pattern became gendered?


I'm not claiming that old fashioned way is not biased. My point is that male characters are biased as well. One bias balances out another bias.  


> How come a behaviour pattern became gendered?


Sorry, I don't understand the whole idea of gender being independent of behavior. It affects because hormones affect behavior. Males have 7-8 times more testosterone. I mean, if you injected yourself 8-fold dosage of testosterone, I guarantee, you'd see HUGE difference in behavior.  Male and female brains also hardwired differently, as recent studies show, it affects behavior as well.


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## Svrtnsse

Valentinator said:


> One bias balances out another bias.



That would assume the biases are equal and opposite, and I don't believe that's the case.


----------



## Nihal

Valentinator said:


> I'm not claiming that old fashioned way is not biased. My point is that male characters are biased as well. One bias balances out another bias.
> 
> Sorry, I don't understand the whole idea of gender being independent of behavior. It affects because hormones affect behavior. Males have 7-8 times more testosterone. I mean, if you injected yourself 8-fold dosage of testosterone, I guarantee, you'd see HUGE difference in behavior.  Male and female brains also hardwired differently, as recent studies show, it affects behavior as well.



The males of the past are the heroes, the conquerors, the builders, the poets, the... (...). There is a variety to them. The women, _when_ they appear are mostly confined to their subservient role. Really? You see no problem at all?


And, oh dear. You tried to use me in your example, but according to you I don't exist and/or my head would explode from the extra dose of testosterone. That's because you're disregarding the individual. I really don't want to dive in personal examples, but based on these simplistic notions I should never feel as much anger I do, nor the mind-numbing rage I'm able to feel despite the low testosterone levels. I assure you this fury is very "masculine"–if you're inclined to assign genders to emotions and consider "female anger" shrieks, slaps and a huge drama scene.

To add insult to the injury I have the appearance of a girly girl. I love dresses, I like laces, I like make-up... Such a conflicting creature (if you're gendering traits and behaviour). Dammit, you've been talking to a figment of your mind the whole time then.


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## Valentinator

Svrtnsse said:


> That would assume the biases are equal and opposite, and I don't believe that's the case.



Well, I still believe the biases are equal. In my opinion, in literature there are completely unrealistic behavior standards for males, men are just less vocal about it (again, due to the standards set by society).  

I'll give you an archetypal example. A classic fairy-tale where the knight faces and defeats the dragon and saves the princess. Somehow princess is considered a bigger victim, objectified by males. I'm sorry, but it seems that nobody cares that the knight has to risk his life to save the princess. Other knights that were presumably slayed by dragon are not even mentioned, it's happy end anyway. It shows completely biased approach towards male behavior, idea that male lives are disposable and that the males have to give up everything in order to reach their goals. If you think that knights deaths and suffering are nothing compared to the poor princess doing nothing in the tower, I just have to respectfully disagree.


----------



## Valentinator

Nihal said:


> The males of the past are the heroes, the conquerors, the builders, the poets, the... (...). There is a variety to them. The women, _when_ they appear are mostly confined to their subservient role. Really? You see no problem at all?



Most men are also the biggest villains, murderers, alcoholics, the most pathetic characters. They also die much more often. You see no problem at all?



> And, oh dear. You tried to use me in your example, but according to you I don't exist and/or my head would explode from the extra dose of testosterone. That's because you're disregarding the individual. I really don't want to dive in personal examples, but based on these simplistic notions I should never feel as much anger I do, nor the mind-numbing rage I'm able to feel despite the low testosterone levels. I assure you this fury is very "masculine"—if you're inclined to assign genders to emotions and consider "female anger" shrieks, slaps and a huge drama scene.
> 
> To add insult to the injury I have the appearance of a girly girl. I love dresses, I like laces, I like make-up... Such a conflicting creature (if you're gendering traits and behaviour). Dammit, you've been talking to a figment of your mind the whole time then.



Oh please. Nobody called you girly girl and assumed that your head would explode from testosterone. If you want to use the straw man argument, it's fine with me. I'm not swallowing the bait.


----------



## Mythopoet

Valentinator said:


> Well, I still believe the biases are equal. In my opinion, in literature there are completely unrealistic behavior standards for males, men are just less vocal about it (again, due to the standards set by society).
> 
> I'll give you an archetypal example. A classic fairy-tale where the knight faces and defeats the dragon and saves the princess. Somehow princess is considered a bigger victim, objectified by males. I'm sorry, but it seems that nobody cares that the knight has to risk his life to save the princess. Other knights that were presumably slayed by dragon are not even mentioned, it's happy end anyway. It shows completely biased approach towards male behavior, idea that male lives are disposable and that the males have to give up everything in order to reach their goals. If you think that knights deaths and suffering are nothing compared to the poor princess doing nothing in the tower, I just have to respectfully disagree.



You've got a good point here. The real difference seems to be that many vocal women these days view male stereotypes as desirable and female stereotypes as undesirable.


----------



## Nihal

Valentinator said:


> Oh please. Nobody called you girly girl and assumed that your head would explode from testosterone. If you want to use the straw man argument, it's fine with me. I'm not swallowing the bait.



Did you even read what I wrote? Did I say you called me a girly girl? I reckon not.


----------



## Valentinator

Nihal said:


> Did you even read what I wrote? Did I say you called me a girly girl? I reckon not.



I think you know what I mean. The testosterone part is still valid.


----------



## ascanius

Nameback said:


> On the note of biology, I will also clarify that I think sex-determinists are vastly overstating their case, especially when you look at the tremendous historical variety of gender expression and gender hierarchy throughout world history.





Nihal said:


> No, I'm not saying that biological differences don't matter at all, I'm saying they're overestimated. Hugely overestimated



I am perturbed by these two statements.  Dismissing empirical evidence as overestimated because you dislike the perceived implications is, quite frankly, wrong.  The scientific method isn't used so we can have an estimated explanation, if the theory doesn't hold up to tests it is revised or thrown out.  Then that research has to go through peer review where other scientists pick it apart.  The whole point of science is to explain the natural world in the most unbiased and factually concrete way possible.  



Nameback said:


> Gender expression is clearly shaped primarily by social factors--but there's a few things that do seem to be universal, like the aforementioned difference in murder rates between men and women. And, of course, biologically-mediated behavior applies both to men and women; saying women are biologically predisposed to be less murderous implies that men are biologically predisposed to be more murderous. It doesn't act any more strongly on women than on men, and of course even biological predispositions are mediated through experience, culture, and incentives, and can be overruled. To continue harping on murder, obviously the murder rate is a fraction of what it used to be, historically, thanks to innovations like modern police forces and court systems--so while human beings (and men especially) may be born with an inclination to use violence to get what we want, we're also able to erect social systems to divert, sublimate, or otherwise suppress many of our inborn tendencies. Biology is not destiny, and I'm not arguing that it is, unlike ascanius.



Wait what? where did I say anything like that?  Your making assumptions about what I said with absolutely no basis.  My point was that sex differences have a biological basis I never made any statement saying that because male and females are biologically different that means women are dumb and belong in the home or are restricted to any role fictional or real world.  I tried to show you chromosomal basis for the sex differences and that the presence of an Y chromosome changes a lot about a person. I was also trying to show you that your assumption that XXX, XXYY etc as being a gender expression is in fact incorrect (still male and female due to how the chromosomes work), hell I even admitted that the case you brought up about hermaphroditism was a good point even if your basis was wrong.  Don't just dismiss something as wrong and make wild assumptions without taking the time to understand the argument first.  



Nihal said:


> No, Mythopoet, I'm not dictating how one should write, it was one example of how those accidental male-less/female-less scenarios happen and how relying on those statistics can worsen the problem instead of helping to overcome it.
> 
> And as a sidenote I'm pointing out that attempting to fit whole groups of people in these averages–biology taking precedence over individualization–can be insulting to readers belonging to these groups.
> 
> The males of the past are the heroes, the conquerors, the builders, the poets, the... (...). There is a variety to them. The women, when they appear are mostly confined to their subservient role. Really? You see no problem at all?
> 
> Umm... you need to read more history.  There were a lot of women who were in prominent roles.  Shockley explained this well in another post.
> 
> And, oh dear. You tried to use me in your example, but according to you I don't exist and/or my head would explode from the extra dose of testosterone. That's because you're disregarding the individual. I really don't want to dive in personal examples, but based on these simplistic notions I should never feel as much anger I do, nor the mind-numbing rage I'm able to feel despite the low testosterone levels. I assure you this fury is very "masculine"–if you're inclined to assign genders to emotions and consider "female anger" shrieks, slaps and a huge drama scene.



First no one is saying anything of the sort.  However if you've ever taken Cortisone, it's a steroidal hormone it affects behavior male or female, you cannot tell me that it didn't affect behavior.  it sounds like you think that that we are saying that these biological differences create complex (stereotypical)behavior.  Doesn't exactly work like that.  Behavior is very complex and is shaped by a plethora of different things like current mood(hormone based but also controlled by past events), world view, current events, ambient, past events, past world view etc.  That being said, it doesn't mean that said behavior isn't biologically based, the cortisone or testosterone examples, just not the way you think.  Research into communication differences is another good example, different hard-wiring of the brain. 

just to clarify this is my opinion.  Behavior is both nature(biology) and nurture(society, upbrining etc) saying it's one or the other is ignoring a lot.


----------



## Mythopoet

ascanius said:


> it sounds like you think that that we are saying that these biological differences create complex (stereotypical)behavior.  Doesn't exactly work like that.  Behavior is very complex and is shaped by a plethora of different things like current mood(hormone based but also controlled by past events), world view, current events, ambient, past events, past world view etc.



This. What some of us are saying is that biology is _one of the things_ that will affect character. Thus it should be taken into consideration along with all the other factors.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Valentinator said:


> I'll give you an archetypal example. A classic fairy-tale where the knight faces and defeats the dragon and saves the princess. Somehow princess is considered a bigger victim, objectified by males. I'm sorry, but it seems that nobody cares that the knight has to risk his life to save the princess. Other knights that were presumably slayed by dragon are not even mentioned, it's happy end anyway. It shows completely biased approach towards male behavior, idea that male lives are disposable and that the males have to give up everything in order to reach their goals. If you think that knights deaths and suffering are nothing compared to the poor princess doing nothing in the tower, I just have to respectfully disagree.



Yes, the knight takes the risks. He fights the dragon and risks his life. He gets to travel far to find the dragon and he's the one who suffers in the cold and rain to get to the dragon's lair. He's the one who hurts and who's in pain.

The princess on the other hand just gets to sit there and be rescued, she probable even got to fly on dragonback to get to the dragon's lair. 

But who's the story about? Who in the story makes a difference?

_"[...] the knight faces and defeats the dragon and saves the princess."_
The knight is the hero of the story, he's the one we follow and who we root and cheer for. The princess, what does she do? She sits around being rescued. Does she have any impact on the story, other than as a motivation for the knight to go and kill the dragon?

How much would the story change if the princess was a prince, or a magical gem, or a pile of gold? Not much - it would still be about the knight who goes to rescue the prince/gem/gold.


----------



## Mythopoet

Svrtnsse said:


> The knight is the hero of the story, he's the one we follow and who we root and cheer for. The princess, what does she do? She sits around being rescued. Does she have any impact on the story, other than as a motivation for the knight to go and kill the dragon?
> 
> How much would the story change if the princess was a prince, or a magical gem, or a pile of gold? Not much - it would still be about the knight who goes to rescue the prince/gem/gold.



I disagree. It would be a completely different kind of story if the princess were a gem or a pile of gold and the hero would be a completely different kind of person for each one. 

The real problem here is that some women just don't _want_ to be the princess. And that's fine. If some women don't like that kind of story they can look for stories that aren't like that or they can write their own stories however they want. But to try to suggest that the kind of story where the knight saves the princess is inherently wrong or bad because the princess is just a princess is ridiculous.


----------



## Valentinator

Svrtnsse said:


> Yes, the knight takes the risks. He fights the dragon and risks his life. He gets to travel far to find the dragon and he's the one who suffers in the cold and rain to get to the dragon's lair. He's the one who hurts and who's in pain.
> 
> The princess on the other hand just gets to sit there and be rescued, she probable even got to fly on dragonback to get to the dragon's lair.
> 
> But who's the story about? Who in the story makes a difference?
> 
> _"[...] the knight faces and defeats the dragon and saves the princess."_
> The knight is the hero of the story, he's the one we follow and who we root and cheer for. The princess, what does she do? She sits around being rescued. Does she have any impact on the story, other than as a motivation for the knight to go and kill the dragon?
> 
> How much would the story change if the princess was a prince, or a magical gem, or a pile of gold? Not much - it would still be about the knight who goes to rescue the prince/gem/gold.



I think you miss the part that most of the characters that we root against are also males. Dragon is the male. We root for male characters and we hate and despise male characters. IMO, that balances it out


----------



## Svrtnsse

Mythopoet said:


> I disagree. It would be a completely different kind of story if the princess were a gem or a pile of gold and the hero would be a completely different kind of person for each one.



I think you're coming from it at a different angle here.
The basis of the story is still: The hero defeats the badness and claims their price.

It doesn't matter to the basis of the story who the hero is, or what the badness is or what the price is, it's still about the hero's struggle against the badness and then they get a reward in the end.

By changing up the hero, the badness, and the price you can get vastly different stories. Let's say it's about a dragon who's going to rescue her knight from an evil princess. That's a very different story from the knight rescuing the princess from the dragon, but basic idea is still the same.


----------



## Mythopoet

Svrtnsse said:


> I think you're coming from it at a different angle here.
> The basis of the story is still: The hero defeats the badness and claims their price.
> 
> It doesn't matter to the basis of the story who the hero is, or what the badness is or what the price is, it's still about the hero's struggle against the badness and then they get a reward in the end.
> 
> By changing up the hero, the badness, and the price you can get vastly different stories. Let's say it's about a dragon who's going to rescue her knight from an evil princess. That's a very different story from the knight rescuing the princess from the dragon, but basic idea is still the same.



And if you boil down all the stories in the world to their basic parts you'd only have a handful of different kinds of stories. It's by changing the details that new stories are possible. So what's your point?


----------



## Svrtnsse

Valentinator said:


> I think you miss the part that most of the characters that we root against are also males. Dragon is the male. We root for male characters and we hate and despise male characters. IMO, that balances it out



Those are still characters that matter and that we care about though. They've got personalities and agendas and plans and they actually do something. The dragon captures the princess. The knight saves the princess. The princess is captured by the dragon and she is saved by the knight. She doesn't do anything, she's just a reward for the people who does do something.

Also, I should point out it would be the same if the roles were reversed. Let's say it's a female knight who defeats the dragon to save the prince. The story would still be about the (now female) knight, and the prince would just be a price for her to claim.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Mythopoet said:


> And if you boil down all the stories in the world to their basic parts you'd only have a handful of different kinds of stories. It's by changing the details that new stories are possible. So what's your point?



My point I was trying to make was that the story of "The knight saves the princess from the dragon." isn't a good example for showing that gender bias is equal.


----------



## ascanius

Svrtnsse said:


> My point I was trying to make was that the story of "The knight saves the princess from the dragon." isn't a good example for showing that gender bias is equal.



What about a father figure being portrayed as a dope, usually well meaning but still idiots with regards to their family.

Or the greasy fat male gamer geek, you never see that portrayed as female.  I'm totally thinking about the south park WoW episode so not sure this counts.


----------



## Valentinator

Svrtnsse said:


> Those are still characters that matter and that we care about though. They've got personalities and agendas and plans and they actually do something. The dragon captures the princess. The knight saves the princess. The princess is captured by the dragon and she is saved by the knight. She doesn't do anything, she's just a reward for the people who does do something.
> 
> Also, I should point out it would be the same if the roles were reversed. Let's say it's a female knight who defeats the dragon to save the prince. The story would still be about the (now female) knight, and the prince would just be a price for her to claim.



I don't agree that it would be the same. I totally support proactive heroines but in this particular example it doesn't seem to work. Fighting as a metaphor for proactivity is only one aspect of the story. Another one is being realistic. "Hack and slash" action is a prerogative of men for a reason. They are biologically predisposed to fighting, they are bigger, stronger, have more muscles, more solid bone structure and they are more aggressive. Female slaying dragon would be completely different type of story, a woman would choose other less straightforward ways. I'm against adding female-berserkers to the story just for the sake of originality. For me, an author has to give some convincing reasons why all of a sudden female-knights surpass male knights in fighting. I'm speaking from personal experience, I do boxing and know lots of good female boxers. For sure top-level female boxers can beat average male boxers but they have no chance against top male boxers.


----------



## Svrtnsse

ascanius said:


> What about a father figure being portrayed as a dope, usually well meaning but still idiots with regards to their family.
> 
> Or the greasy fat male gamer geek, you never see that portrayed as female.  I'm totally thinking about the south park WoW episode so not sure this counts.



They're both good examples of negative male stereotypes (am I using the word right?), but I'm not sure that their existence is proof to me that gender bias is equal between the sexes.
I'm not denying that it exists.

The point I was reacting against is that gender bias is equal between the genders. I don't believe it is.


----------



## ascanius

Valentinator said:


> I don't agree that it would be the same. I totally support proactive heroines but in this particular example it doesn't seem to work. Fighting as a metaphor for proactivity is only one aspect of the story. Another one is being realistic. "Hack and slash" action is a prerogative of men for a reason. They are biologically predisposed to fighting, they are bigger, stronger, have more muscles, more solid bone structure and they are more aggressive. Female slaying dragon would be completely different type of story, a woman would choose other less straightforward ways. I'm against adding female-berserkers to the story just for the sake of originality. For me, an author has to give some convincing reasons why all of a sudden female-knights surpass male knights in fighting. I'm speaking from personal experience, I do boxing and know lots of good female boxers. For sure top-level female boxers can beat average male boxers but they have no chance against top male boxers.



I agree especially with regards to proactivity.  Ursula K. Le Guin said basically the same thing about having female characters who are essentially men with breasts.  If proactivity is dependent on using male stereotypes I think we need a new definition of proactive.  



Svrtnsse said:


> They're both good examples of negative male stereotypes (am I using the word right?), but I'm not sure that their existence is proof to me that gender bias is equal between the sexes.
> I'm not denying that it exists.
> 
> The point I was reacting against is that gender bias is equal between the genders. I don't believe it is.



I guess it depends upon what you mean by equal?  If your going by the quantity of bias then maybe your right, I don't know.  I think in other terms there are some very bad male bias that easily rival female bias.


----------



## Svrtnsse

ascanius said:


> I guess it depends upon what you mean by equal?  If your going by the quantity of bias then maybe your right, I don't know.  I think in other terms there are some very bad male bias that easily rival female bias.



The original statement I commented on was this:


Valentinator said:


> [...] My point is that male characters are biased as well. One bias balances out another bias.



My counterpoint was that this would only apply if the biases are equal, and I don't believe that they are.

I'm well aware that there are biases in both directions, but I don't feel as if you can balance them one for one against each other.


----------



## Gryphos

Valentinator said:
			
		

> Female slaying dragon would be completely different type of story, a woman would choose other less straightforward ways. I'm against adding female-berserkers to the story just for the sake of originality.



This seems like a huge generalisation. It's one thing to say that there is a likelihood of the female knight choosing a different way of combatting the dragon, but here you appear to be saying that _*any*_ woman would _*definitely*_ not slay the dragon through typically 'masculine' means. Is there no room for diversity in this? Would there not be a portion of female knights (whatever size that portion is) that would go the 'masculine' route? And same vice versa with male knights going the 'feminine' route.



			
				Valentinator said:
			
		

> For me, an author has to give some convincing reasons why all of a sudden female-knights surpass male knights in fighting.



If all female knights somehow surpassed all male knights in fighting then something would be up, just like something would be up if somehow all male knights surpassed all female knights. But to scale it down to specific knights, the female knight beating the male is easily explained. What if the female knight happens to be better trained? Then they would easily beat the male knight, and the same vice versa.


----------



## Trick

So, this is is more in line with the original post but I think it applies still.

I just found out that Brandon Sanderson originally wrote Vin in Mistborn as a guy... He thought that the male version of her was a boring character based on how he thought about his life experience. He switched her to a girl and the rest is history.

My take on this is that he felt it as a writer, he wasn't told that it would be a better marketing strategy. This makes all the difference.


----------



## Steerpike

Does it really make a big difference in terms of how the story comes out? If his publisher had said "we want this character to be female for marketing purposes" would he have produced an inferior story? Interesting question.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Steerpike said:


> Does it really make a big difference in terms of how the story comes out? If his publisher had said "we want this character to be female for marketing purposes" would he have produced an inferior story? Interesting question.



Potentially it might. I'd say it depends on how he as a writer feels about the change. He might agree with the theory and reasoning behind it, but if he's not able to muster up the same level of passion for the "new" version of the character, he might not do as good a job at it.


----------



## Steerpike

Svrtnsse said:


> Potentially it might. I'd say it depends on how he as a writer feels about the change. He might agree with the theory and reasoning behind it, but if he's not able to muster up the same level of passion for the "new" version of the character, he might not do as good a job at it.



I think that's possible as well, though I think it is more likely with amateur writers. A professional writer should be able to do an equally good job in either situation, in my view. That's part of being a professional in a field.


----------



## Gryphos

To me what's most troubling is the genderisation (if that's even  word) of psychological attributes. The way that anger, bravery, aggressiveness, etc. are labelled 'masculine' and sensitivity, passiveness, etc. are labelled as 'feminine'. Of course, with the genderisation of these qualities also comes the genderisation of activities that relate to them, how men are 'supposed' to fight and women are 'supposed' to care for the children. And yes, in terms of biology and statistical distribution, men will on average be more likely to exhibit these 'masculine' qualities and women the 'feminine' ones. Therefore, it is understandable why these qualities have become gendered by our society. BUT–

Even if these qualities are gendered biologically, should we really treat them like they are? Let me explain. Humans are exceptional because we have self-awareness. We have concepts of morality, rather than just being ruled by instinct. We have transcended the natural, darwinian world and built society. Hence, why the **** should we care what nature or evolution says we should act like, or how our society should function? I would rather build a society on moral truths than evolutionary ones. And a moral truth that practically everyone agrees on is that men and women should be free to pursue any path they want in life and shouldn't be constrained by gender roles imposed on them (If somehow you don't believe that, then... well... you're wrong).

So why is gendering qualities a problem? Because it creates gender roles! If you state that being aggressive is 'masculine', you're subliminally telling men and boys that their role in society is to fight. And you're also telling women and girls that they can't fight because 'they're not meant to'. By gendering qualities, you are restricting what people of both genders feel they can and cannot, should and should not do with their lives. Which is... well, bad. So we should stop.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Trick said:


> So, this is is more in line with the original post but I think it applies still.
> 
> I just found out that Brandon Sanderson originally wrote Vin in Mistborn as a guy... He thought that the male version of her was a boring character based on how he thought about his life experience. He switched her to a girl and the rest is history.
> 
> My take on this is that he felt it as a writer, he wasn't told that it would be a better marketing strategy. This makes all the difference.


I completely agree.

I can change my characters as I see fit. If someone else tells me to, well… that depends. If I just made the character up, I might not care. If I'm getting a don't-need-a-dayjob advance, I'm probably not going to complain or lose my enthusiasm.

But yeah, if a forced change takes away my passion, it might hurt the story.



I think my takeaway from what Sanderson is doing (regardless of how gender plays into it)…

As the writer, YOU are the first barometer measuring your story and characters for boredom (bore-ometer?) vs. passion. If you have the passion, then you're probably going about your story the best way, or the best way for you. Someone else's way might not work for you. On the other hand, if you're not feeling it, chances are neither will your readers.


----------



## Valentinator

Gryphos said:


> This seems like a huge generalisation. It's one thing to say that there is a likelihood of the female knight choosing a different way of combatting the dragon, but here you appear to be saying that _*any*_ woman would _*definitely*_ not slay the dragon through typically 'masculine' means. Is there no room for diversity in this? Would there not be a portion of female knights (whatever size that portion is) that would go the 'masculine' route? And same vice versa with male knights going the 'feminine' route.


I guess slaying the dragon supposed to be extremely challenging. Surely, some women would choose 'masculine' route and they would face the dragon and show average fighting skill, therefore, the dragon would simply kill them like the rest of the contenders. Otherwise, you have a scenario where the female knight just gets lucky or the dragon isn't that scary after all.  In both cases, it would be less exiting to read.  



> If all female knights somehow surpassed all male knights in fighting then something would be up, just like something would be up if somehow all male knights surpassed all female knights. But to scale it down to specific knights, the female knight beating the male is easily explained. What if the female knight happens to be better trained? Then they would easily beat the male knight, and the same vice versa.



I'm not saying slaying the dragon by a female is not feasible at all, I'm saying the author needs to provide some good explanation for that. IMO 'better trained' is not a good explanation. Why is female knight better trained? A male knight is basically a female knight on steroids. And the female still gets the advantage. How is it possible? If this kind of questions is left unexplained I think of sloppy writing. Simple straightforward gender replacement gives a really bad impression.   

Personally, I like the idea of female warriors. In my WIP females and males have comparable fighting skills, but I did it by creating specific magic system. Without some applied phlebotium it looks unrealistic.


----------



## Steerpike

Valentinator said:


> I'm not saying slaying the dragon by a female is not feasible at all, I'm saying the author needs to provide some good explanation for that. IMO 'better trained' is not a good explanation. Why is female knight better trained? A male knight is basically a female knight on steroids. And the female still gets the advantage. How is it possible? If this kind of questions were left unexplained I'd think of sloppy writing. Simple straightforward gender replacement gives a really bad impression.
> 
> Personally, I like the idea of female warriors. In my WIP females and males have comparable fighting skills, but I did it by creating specific magic system. Without some applied phlebotium it looks unrealistic.



Sheer nonsense, in my opinion, and you can find plenty of speculative fiction to the contrary that readers don't have a problem with. I think it is a mistake to write down to the prejudices of a subset of readers, and that's essentially what you're advocating here. The majority of the readers have, in my estimation, the requisite imagination and real world experience to realize that there are women out there who can perform physically on this level, in the real world where there is no magic or hand-waving explanation of how a woman could do so, and so wouldn't require an explanation of how it happens in a fictional world.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Valentinator said:


> I guess slaying the dragon supposed to be extremely challenging. Surely, some women would choose 'masculine' route and they would face the dragon and show average fighting skill, therefore, the dragon would simply kill them like the rest of the contenders. Otherwise, you have a scenario where the female knight just gets lucky or the dragon isn't that scary after all.  In both cases, it would be less exiting to read.



It seems to me like you're saying that reading about a female killing a dragon would be less exciting than if a male did it. Is that correct?

I'm asking, because if that's what you're saying, then I think we may have some fundamentally differing opinions about writing.
To me, it's up to the writer to make a situation exciting. If a writer isn't able to make a fight between a woman and a dragon as exciting as a fight between a man and a dragon, then to me that's a failure of the writer and not of the characters.


----------



## Trick

Steerpike said:


> ...there are women out there who can perform physically on this level, in the real world where there is no magic or hand-waving explanation of how a woman could do so, and so wouldn't require an explanation of how it happens in a fictional world.



I'm not strictly disagreeing with you but can I ask, why are sports for men and women separate then? Professional and olympic... The best female athletes could indeed best most men but not male athletes of an equal caliber. If a women is beating men in physical feats when they are of an equal athletic level, that seems a stretch. If she is, however, beating them in courage, determination and fortitude I wholeheartedly agree.


----------



## Steerpike

Trick said:


> I'm not strictly disagreeing with you but can I ask, why are sports for men and women separate then? Professional and olympic... The best female athletes could indeed best most men but not male athletes of an equal caliber. If a women is beating men in physical feats when they are of an equal athletic level, that seems a stretch. If she is, however, beating them in courage, determination and fortitude I wholeheartedly agree.



1. Tradition; and
2. Sports deal with large numbers of individuals, where averages for something like strength matter more. We're talking about individual characters in a story, and statistical distributions don't define an individual person. Rather, they broadly define populations.


----------



## cupiscent

Valentinator said:


> I think you miss the part that most of the characters that we root against are also males. Dragon is the male. We root for male characters and we hate and despise male characters. IMO, that balances it out



...are you serious? Male characters fight male characters and women lie there and do nothing and that's BALANCED?


----------



## Valentinator

Steerpike said:


> Sheer nonsense, in my opinion, and you can find plenty of speculative fiction to the contrary that readers don't have a problem with. I think it is a mistake to write down the prejudices of a subset of readers, and that's essentially what you're advocating here. The majority of the readers have, in my estimation, the requisite imagination and real world experience to realize that there are women out there who can perform physically on this level, in the real world where there is no magic or hand-waving explanation of how a woman could do so, and so wouldn't require an explanation of how it happens in a fictional world.



Well, I was just sharing my opinion. I have my real world experience, you have yours, I see no problem with that. I say that best female warriors don't have a single chance against best male warriors. It's your right to disagree. There is no way to prove or disprove it anyway.  



Svrtnsse said:


> It seems to me like you're saying that reading about a female killing a dragon would be less exciting than if a male did it. Is that correct?
> 
> I'm asking, because if that's what you're saying, then I think we may have some fundamentally differing opinions about writing.
> To me, it's up to the writer to make a situation exciting. If a writer isn't able to make a fight between a woman and a dragon as exciting as a fight between a man and a dragon, then to me that's a failure of the writer and not of the characters.



I was referring to the original archetypal fairy tail. No doubt, there are plenty of ways to write a really good story about  female knights slaying dragons. It will be just quite a big deviation from original trope (that's what I call 'good explanation'). I was just saying that simply changing the names from John to Jill wouldn't work well.


----------



## Sheilawisz

After reading the latest posts in this thread, I am thinking of my favorite moments from one of my favorite Fantasy movies.

It's _Alice in Wonderland_ (2010) and I refer to the personal battle between the brave, armored Alice and the huge and deadly Jabberwocky dragon. In case that you have never watched the movie, you can see a picture of the battle right here.

Alice managed to destroy the Jabberwocky not by means of sheer strength, but thanks to her great courage, determination and pride. It takes loads of mental and emotional strength to enter and endure battle, it's not only physical... 

Also, why do you always have our species in mind during these discussions?

We are Fantasy writers, and many of us have other species in our worlds. In my Aylar species, the females go to war while the males stay home even though a male is far stronger and larger, simply because in this species the females represent 87% of the total population.

Fantasy literature does need more female characters in strong roles, I agree with that.


----------



## Valentinator

cupiscent said:


> ...are you serious? Male characters fight male characters and women lie there and do nothing and that's BALANCED?



Yes, I'm serious.


----------



## Butterfly

All this talk of slaying dragons... seriously...

I mean if those big knights understood that no meant no, I wouldn't have had to buy myself a guard dragon to keep them away in the first place.

Know what I mean...


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Steerpike said:


> 1. Tradition; and
> 2. Sports deal with large numbers of individuals, where averages for something like strength matter more.
> 
> We're talking about individual characters in a story, and statistical distributions don't define an individual person. Rather, they broadly define populations.


I get what you're saying in terms of story, but I question this in commonplace reality.  

When serving in the Marines, at the outset of the debate over women in combat roles, I took part in several platoon level tests designed to ascertain the female Marine's ability to keep up physically with male counterparts.   

The females selected for these exercises were not the average. First, they were Marines. Secondly, they represented the top ten percent of physical & mental toughness, specifically selected for these tests.   

Every single one I witnessed failed to keep up on forced marches...every one.   

This was primarily a measure of physical strength and stamina, but there were a few breakdowns in mental toughness which accompanied the failures. However, males are as susceptible to mental breakdown in this regard.

The problem, story-wise, is when we try to equate males and females using the same standard, like physical strength in the above example. In a situation where all males are physically fit (the Marines), exceedingly few women will be able to compete at that level. In the reality that makes up most of our world, the average man isn't near that level of fitness. As such, there will be many women who could outdo them physically. 

So the fairness of a measure like fitness, depends entirely on context and setting.  When the comparison is mental, like Trick mentioned above with "Tenacity", the playing field is level, unless an individual is susceptible to mental breakdown through physical burden. That is individual though. I've met plenty of tough women. I've meant plenty of mentally & physically weak men.


----------



## cupiscent

I'm trying very hard not to take this personally, Valentinator, because it seems to me you just said that, as a woman, I should stay at home, not make decisions, and have no impact on the story.


----------



## Steerpike

Valentinator said:


> Yes, I'm serious.



That's unfortunate, because it's an extremely poor argument. Putting male characters in both the villain and hero roles has no bearing on balance vis-a-vis female characters.


----------



## Trick

Steerpike said:


> 1. Tradition; and
> 2. Sports deal with large numbers of individuals, where averages for something like strength matter more. We're talking about individual characters in a story, and statistical distributions don't define an individual person. Rather, they broadly define populations.



Tradition is not an argument. Women cannot compete with men on an athletic level. When you bring the best of both together, the men win, every time. This is not a flaw in women, it is simply a biological lottery that favors men very heavily. There may be a very rare women who can compete in a professional sport with men but I have never heard of one. And, if you offer evidence of even a few I'll guarantee that they either naturally or unnaturally had male hormone levels. 

In this case I was referring to the knights which is a situation where averages for something like strength absolutely matter. Athletic ability maybe good mostly for sports in this era but knights were athletes, no doubt about it.


----------



## Steerpike

T.Allen.Smith said:


> In a situation where all males are physically fit (the Marines), exceedingly few women will be able to compete at that level.



As long as there is one, there's your character.


----------



## Trick

Steerpike said:


> As long as there is one, there's your character.



You can dream one up, yes. As an author there is a lot of license in these things and I encourage writers to make it believable enough that it won't break the suspension of disbelief. I challenge anyone, however, to find a real life example of one who did not have a hormone imbalance, whether that imbalance was purposeful or not. Now, this could be the explanation in the story but then we run into Ursula K. Leguin's issue of female characters who are just men with breasts (albeit, they are likely to be rather small).


----------



## Valentinator

Steerpike said:


> That's unfortunate, because it's an extremely poor argument. Putting male characters in both the villain and hero roles has no bearing on balance vis-a-vis female characters.



That's all subjective, it's a matter of personal perception. Personally, a male that restores status quo of the world by killing another male who wants to destroy it is pretty much the same as two females doing nothing. Result is the same.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Just going to leave this here to make a point -


----------



## Svrtnsse

Valentinator said:


> That's all subjective, it's a matter of personal perception. Personally, a male that restores status quo of the world by killing another male who wants to destroy it is pretty much the same as two females doing nothing. Result is the same.



You've lost me here.

We have two guys fighting. One of them's a hero, he's the good guy. The other guy is a villain who wants to destroy the world. The good guys kills the villain. This has the same effect as two women sitting around doing nothing.

At the very least the difference is that there's a dead guy after the men are done fighting, whereas when the women are done sitting around doing nothing there's no dead guy.

Now put that into a story perspective, which makes for the more interesting story?
Two guys fighting to the death, or two women sitting around doing nothing?


----------



## Steerpike

Trick said:


> There may be a very rare women who can compete in a professional sport with men but I have never heard of one. And, if you offer evidence of even a few I'll guarantee that they either naturally or unnaturally had male hormone levels.



So, what, now you want to get into the hormone content of phenotypical females? Does it strike you as ironic in any way that the idea of a physically competent woman sends you down that rabbit hole, where you've immediately got to look around for some kind of explanation to support it? If you have one male character who is vastly superior to another, are you waving it away based on hormone levels (and even the implication that they may not be natural)? If you see a male character in a book who is more sensitive or good with children, are you saying "Oh, I guarantee that this guy has abnormally high female hormones levels!"

Really, it's somewhat astonishing the mental gymnastics so many people want to go through to explain away a competent female character, rather than simply just acknowledging that the character is really good at something and that's OK.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Glutton should be in this discussion.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Steerpike said:


> As long as there is one, there's your character.


No argument there. Like I said, it depends entirely on context.    

In the gym I work out in, there are women who lift way more than some of the male members. The difference has nothing to do with hormones. The males undoubtedly have the advantage of testosterone. But, the women I'm speaking of train hard, are more consistent, & have been at it longer. That's reality. Reality isn't about averages, it's about individuals.


----------



## Valentinator

Svrtnsse said:


> You've lost me here.
> 
> We have two guys fighting. One of them's a hero, he's the good guy. The other guy is a villain who wants to destroy the world. The good guys kills the villain. This has the same effect as two women sitting around doing nothing.
> 
> At the very least the difference is that there's a dead guy after the men are done fighting, whereas when the women are done sitting around doing nothing there's no dead guy.



So overall women have advantage, they both survived, right?



> Now put that into a story perspective, which makes for the more interesting story?
> Two guys fighting to the death, or two women sitting around doing nothing?



Well, I was obviously exaggerating. Two women can do plenty of interesting things, but two guys fighting to the death seems more realistic to me. And I'm not claiming this is something to be proud of.


----------



## Valentinator

A. E. Lowan said:


> Just going to leave this here to make a point -



It's a demonstration, not a real fight.


----------



## cupiscent

Valentinator said:


> Well, I was obviously exaggerating. Two women can do plenty of interesting things, but to guys fighting to the death seems more realistic to me. And I'm not claiming this is something to be proud of.



More realistic.

But the dragons are fine.


----------



## Butterfly

Valentinator said:


> So overall women have advantage, they both survived, right?
> 
> 
> 
> Well, I was obviously exaggerating. Two women can do plenty of interesting things, but to guys fighting to the death seems more realistic to me. And I'm not claiming this is something to be proud of.



I'm going to recommend a read of this book. Violence: A Writer's Guide Second Edition eBook: Rory Miller, Steve Perry: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store Some of it is a bit harrowing in parts but it will dispel some myths.


----------



## Chessie

Steerpike said:


> rather than simply just acknowledging that the character is really good at something and that's OK.


+1 

Yes, we're built smaller but that doesn't mean that we can't achieve physical greatness. My mother-in-law, who is a tiny woman that barely reaches 5 foot, climbed Mt. McKinley at 95 lbs back in the 70s. That's 20,237 feet above sea level. She carried twice more weight than the men in her group. Having a small frame is actually an advantage in some situations...not to mention we move faster and have a good amount of stamina. 

So to say that two women fighting a battle against men and that isn't realistic....well...that's totally bogus. That depends on whether the character in question is in good shape, if she's been trained to kill people, and what her mental state is. You know, the same as a man. Unbelievable that in the 21st century, women are still thought of as these weak figurines.


----------



## Svrtnsse

@Valentinator

I'm afraid I'm still lost. I don't understand what point you are trying to make. 

As I recall it all originally started with comments about gender biases (which in itself is pretty vague), but I'm not sure that's what's going on anymore.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Butterfly said:


> I'm going to recommend a read of this book. Violence: A Writer's Guide Second Edition eBook: Rory Miller, Steve Perry: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store Some of it is a bit harrowing in parts but it will dispel some myths.



LOVE this book!  I second the recommendation for anyone who wants to write violence realistically.


----------



## Valentinator

cupiscent said:


> More realistic.
> 
> But the dragons are fine.



I hope you are not confusing realistic portrayal and realism.


----------



## Jabrosky

Whatever the aggregate strength difference between men and women, I estimate it's drastically smaller than the strength difference between _Homo sapiens_ of either sex and your conventional fantasy dragon. You're already at a extreme physical disadvantage against a bus-sized carnivorous reptile with a thick scaly hide and bone-crushing jaws, so upgrading your own body mass by 15% isn't going to tip the scales in your favor by much. Either way, you have to be stupid or suicidal to think your brute strength alone will suffice against something with so much more of it. You're going to need different techniques for that one regardless of your reproductive equipment.


----------



## Butterfly

Real Girl PowerÃ¢â‚¬Â¬ - YouTube

Seen this? (No violence involved). Wish I could do it.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Butterfly said:


> Real Girl PowerÃ¢€Â¬ - YouTube
> 
> Seen this? (No violence involved). Wish I could do it.


Did she even sweat? That was insane—especially that last climb, which she made appear effortless!


----------



## Valentinator

Svrtnsse said:


> @Valentinator
> 
> I'm afraid I'm still lost. I don't understand what point you are trying to make.
> 
> As I recall it all originally started with comments about gender biases (which in itself is pretty vague), but I'm not sure that's what's going on anymore.



My point was that both genders have biases and stereotypes. Together they create sort of equilibrium. The last part is kind of subjective and a matter of personal perception.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Valentinator said:


> It's a demonstration, not a real fight.



Okay, let's go with women who fought to the death, shall we?

Anne Bonny, pirate - Anne Bonny - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lagertha, Viking Shieldmaiden - Lagertha - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Boudica, Queen - Boudica - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This whole list of female agents with the Special Operations Executive during WWII - List of female SOE agents - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And, hell, lets just end this now with the article that won the 2014 Hugo Award for Related Works - "'We Have Always Fought': Challenging the 'Women, Cattle and Slaves' Narrative" by Kameron Hurley - A Dribble of Ink


----------



## Gryphos

@Valentinator

With no due respect, what the **** are you even saying anymore? Please stop, you're embarrassing yourself.


----------



## Butterfly

Joan of Arc

Don't forget her


----------



## Steerpike

Valentinator said:


> That's all subjective, it's a matter of personal perception. Personally, a male that restores status quo of the world by killing another male who wants to destroy it is pretty much the same as two females doing nothing. Result is the same.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Butterfly said:


> Joan of Arc
> 
> Don't forget her



Oh yes!  The list can go on and on and on...


----------



## Butterfly

And all those women who dressed as men so they could enlist in several wars...

List of wartime cross-dressers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


----------



## Svrtnsse

Valentinator said:


> My point was that both genders have biases and stereotypes. Together they create sort of equilibrium. The last part is kind of subjective and a matter of personal perception.



Yes, there are biases and stereotypes for both genders, but I still don't agree that they balance each other out. I also don't feel that you've actually provided a good example of where this is the case. 
Instead, I feel as if you've been enforcing/perpetuating the stereotype of women being weaker, less interesting, versions of men.  It may not have been your intent, but it's what I've gotten out of it.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Gryphos said:


> @Valentinator  With no due respect, what the **** are you even saying anymore? Please stop, you're embarrassing yourself.



Let's make sure we keep personal attacks out of this discussion. People are entitled to their opinions and expressions.

Respect and tact is a requirement of passionate discussion here on Mythic Scribes.


----------



## Gryphos

Ching Shih, a fascinating female chinese pirate admiral
Ching Shih - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

One of my favorite historical female bad asses...

Jeanne de Clisson

Jeanne de Clisson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Svrtnsse said:


> Yes, there are biases and stereotypes for both genders, but I still don't agree that they balance each other out. I also don't feel that you've actually provided a good example of where this is the case.
> Instead, I feel as if you've been enforcing/perpetuating the stereotype of women being weaker, less interesting, versions of men.  It may not have been your intent, but it's what I've gotten out of it.


Besides, who wants to write stereotypical characters in the first place?


----------



## Valentinator

Svrtnsse said:


> Yes, there are biases and stereotypes for both genders, but I still don't agree that they balance each other out. I also don't feel that you've actually provided a good example of where this is the case.
> Instead, I feel as if you've been enforcing/perpetuating the stereotype of women being weaker, less interesting, versions of men.  It may not have been your intent, but it's what I've gotten out of it.



Come on, I'm not saying that women are weaker and less interesting version of men. This is a straw man argument. I'm trying to say they are interesting in *different* way, not the same way as men. Their strong sides are being displayed in other types of situations, not while cutting dragons to pieces.


----------



## Butterfly

I already told you... That dragon is a pet.


----------



## Gryphos

Valentinator said:
			
		

> Come on, I'm not saying that women are weaker and less interesting version of men. This is a straw man argument. I'm trying to say they are interesting in different way, not the same way as men. Their strong sides are being displayed in other types of situations, not while cutting dragons to peaces.



But at the same time you're saying, or at least seriously suggesting that women _*can't*_ cut dragons to pieces.


----------



## cupiscent

Valentinator said:


> Come on, I'm not saying that women are weaker and less interesting version of men. This is a straw man argument. I'm trying to say they are interesting in *different* way, not the same way as men. Their strong sides are being displayed in other types of situations, not while cutting dragons to pieces.



I have not yet seen you suggest that women have anything to add to a story. Would you care to elaborate?


----------



## Valentinator

Gryphos said:


> But at the same time you're saying, or at least seriously suggesting that women _*can't*_ cut dragons to pieces.



No, I'm saying it seems less realistic and I was referring to particular trope we were discussing.


----------



## Mythopoet

I think most of the debate in the thread right now is irrelevant. 

Here's the thing:

We all use stereotypes. Every single one of us. Man and woman. We use stereotypes in the sense of placing people in groups with labels because we cannot actually process the ridiculous amount of people in the world around us. We don't have the capacity to think of all the people as individuals. So we put them in groups and we attach labels to help us. Most people don't do this to devalue others or to attack them. It's just a coping mechanism for living in a big world with lots of people.

Now of course there are people who are really sexists or really racists. They do actually think women are inferior to men or black people are inferior to white or whatever. But the sexism and the racism that they profess is just a symptom of a deeper disease, it's not the disease its self. The disease is egoism. The problem is the individual person placing themselves as the epicenter of the world in their own worldview and dealing with everyone else in the world on an us vs. them basis. Thus the people who are their friends, their family or happen to be like them become the "us" and everyone else becomes "them". For egoist men, women often become the "them". But for egoist women, men are the "them". 

You can't combat this kind of thinking by trying to tip the scales in favor of whoever the "them" are. You can only combat it by targeting the base assumption: the individual is not the center of the world.


----------



## Valentinator

cupiscent said:


> I have not yet seen you suggest that women have anything to add to a story. Would you care to elaborate?



Women have plenty of things to add to the story. I'm talking about particular trope, please don't overgeneralize what I'm saying.


----------



## cupiscent

Mythopoet said:


> You can't combat this kind of thinking by trying to tip the scales in favor of whoever the "them" are. You can only combat it by targeting the base assumption: the individual is not the center of the world.



...and you can't do that by telling stories with different individuals at the center of them?


----------



## Svrtnsse

No, you really are saying that women are weaker and less interesting.



Valentinator said:


> I guess slaying the dragon supposed to be extremely challenging. Surely, some women would choose 'masculine' route and they would face the dragon and show average fighting skill, therefore, the dragon would simply kill them like the rest of the contenders. Otherwise, you have a scenario where the female knight just gets lucky or the dragon isn't that scary after all.  In both cases, it would be less exiting to read.


----------



## Mythopoet

cupiscent said:


> ...and you can't do that by telling stories with different individuals at the center of them?



I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. 

My point is that if someone is telling stories mostly full of men, and you think that's a problem, it won't be solved if that author slaps a few women in the story. Balancing the number of men and women in a story is not going to help anything.


----------



## Steerpike

Mythopoet said:


> We all use stereotypes. Every single one of us. Man and woman. We use stereotypes in the sense of placing people in groups with labels because we cannot actually process the ridiculous amount of people in the world around us. We don't have the capacity to think of all the people as individuals. So we put them in groups and we attach labels to help us. Most people don't do this to devalue others or to attack them. It's just a coping mechanism for living in a big world with lots of people.



That's true when you're talking about our brain's functioning in terms of categorizing and labeling the world as a whole. It makes sense, it had evolutionary value to us, and it is impractical to do otherwise. But none of that is relevant to your creation of an individual character. When you create a character, you should be thinking of that character as an individual in most instances, and the inability of a human being to visualize concretely every single individual on the planet doesn't really enter into it.


----------



## Jabrosky

Valentinator said:


> No, I'm saying it seems less realistic and I was referring to particular trope we were discussing.


And you still glossed over my point that neither human sex would be all that effective at cutting up something on the scale of a dragon. The body mass difference between men and women is ~15%. Do you seriously believe that would make such a tremendous difference against such a huge animal which has the advantage in brute strength either way?


----------



## Mythopoet

Steerpike said:


> That's true when you're talking about our brain's functioning in terms of categorizing and labeling the world as a whole. It makes sense, it had evolutionary value to us, and it is impractical to do otherwise. But none of that is relevant to your creation of an individual character. When you create a character, you should be thinking of that character as an individual in most instances, and the inability of a human being to visualize concretely every single individual on the planet doesn't really enter into it.



No one here has said you shouldn't think of each character as an individual. But many have been suggesting that when you think of those individual characters, biology shouldn't have anything to do with it. And that's just patently ridiculous. Biology is still a part of every individual.


----------



## cupiscent

Mythopoet said:


> I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
> 
> My point is that if someone is telling stories mostly full of men, and you think that's a problem, it won't be solved if that author slaps a few women in the story. Balancing the number of men and women in a story is not going to help anything.



Ah. And my point is that individuals will not stop thinking of themselves as the centre of the universe if all the stories being written star - or in fact are solely populated by - individuals just like them. So if we want to challenge the unthinking creation of stories with mono-demographics, we need to produce more stories with varied demographics.


----------



## Steerpike

Jabrosky said:


> And you still glossed over my point that neither human sex would be all that effective at cutting up something on the scale of a dragon. The body mass difference between men and women is ~15%. Do you seriously believe that would make such a tremendous difference against such a huge animal which has the advantage in brute strength either way?



Fighting a dragon, it seems to me more likely a human in a one-on-one situation would rely on wit and speed to have a hope of survival. If it comes down to going against it muscle for muscle, you're already dead.


----------



## Steerpike

Mythopoet said:


> No one here has said you shouldn't think of each character as an individual. But many have been suggesting that when you think of those individual characters, biology shouldn't have anything to do with it. And that's just patently ridiculous. Biology is still a part of every individual.



Biology is part of every individual, true. My point is, though, that biological averages don't have to define individuals. I know men who fall much more on the female side and vice versa. So, for any given character, they can fall anywhere along the spectrum between traditionally male and female, regardless of physical sex, and it's still a fine character. There's no basis for saying the character is unrealistic. You might say she is atypical, but that's about it.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Steerpike said:


> That's true when you're talking about our brain's functioning in terms of categorizing and labeling the world as a whole. It makes sense, it had evolutionary value to us, and it is impractical to do otherwise. But none of that is relevant to your creation of an individual character. When you create a character, you should be thinking of that character as an individual in most instances, and the inability of a human being to visualize concretely every single individual on the planet doesn't really enter into it.


I think Mytho was just trying to give some perspective on the source of an individual's perspective, not the generation of characters.

Although, an inaccurate or inexperienced perspective can damage or inhibit solid character creation.


----------



## Steerpike

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I think Mytho was just trying to give some perspective on the source of an individual's perspective, not the generation of characters.



Yep. And that makes sense, insofar as it goes. Our brains were built to generalize. We had to generalize to survive.


----------



## Valentinator

Svrtnsse said:


> No, you really are saying that women are weaker and less interesting.



Wow, it's getting ridiculous. So here is my train of thought. In order to kill the dragon, a knight must be the best. The best male knights are stronger than the best female knights (in my personal opinion). That doesn't mean all women are weaker than all men. And it doesn't mean that females can't slay the dragon. They can do it *differently*.

About the interesting part. I was blaming the author, not the women. If the author puts character in a situation where he / she doesn't seem realistic it not because of the gender, it's because the author's sloppy writing. It has nothing to do with the gender by itself.


----------



## Steerpike

Valentinator said:


> In order to kill the dragon, a knight must be the best. The best male knights are stronger than the best female knights (in my personal opinion).



The logic breaks down here. You assume that strongest=best when it comes to killing a dragon with a sword. I don't think that's true.


----------



## Nihal

Gryphos said:


> Ching Shih, a fascinating female chinese pirate admiral
> Ching Shih - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Yeah! She's not only a fascinating chinese pirate, she's one of the most successful pirates of all the time. She's also a good example of how a woman can operate in an hostile environment and a patriarchal society, playing her role of "being a woman as it's expected", and still achieve impressive feats.


----------



## Gryphos

Valentinator said:
			
		

> Wow, it's getting ridiculous. So here is my train of thought. In order to kill the dragon, a knight must be the best. The best male knights are stronger than the best female knights (in my personal opinion). That doesn't mean all women are weaker than all men. And it doesn't mean that females can't slay the dragon. They can do it differently.



Okay, but you're still implying that women cannot beat the dragon _the same way_ the men can.


----------



## Valentinator

Jabrosky said:


> And you still glossed over my point that neither human sex would be all that effective at cutting up something on the scale of a dragon. The body mass difference between men and women is ~15%. Do you seriously believe that would make such a tremendous difference against such a huge animal which has the advantage in brute strength either way?


 We are talking about statistics here. Many knights were slayed by the dragon, one survived. In this case I suppose 15% make a difference.


----------



## Trick

Steerpike said:


> So, what, now you want to get into the hormone content of phenotypical females? Does it strike you as ironic in any way that the idea of a physically competent woman sends you down that rabbit hole, where you've immediately got to look around for some kind of explanation to support it? If you have one male character who is vastly superior to another, are you waving it away based on hormone levels (and even the implication that they may not be natural)? If you see a male character in a book who is more sensitive or good with children, are you saying "Oh, I guarantee that this guy has abnormally high female hormones levels!"
> 
> Really, it's somewhat astonishing the mental gymnastics so many people want to go through to explain away a competent female character, rather than simply just acknowledging that the character is really good at something and that's OK.



Physical competence and athletic prowess are not the same, nor are they mutually exclusive. I never said the word competent, you did. I find most woman to be more competent in most things than most men, only from personal experience of course, no studies or anything. A woman fighting a dragon, for instance, is totally plausible to me but a woman fighting men who are equally athletic and trained at level with her is less plausible. If she defeats one, great and believable. If she defeats ten back to back, which is so common in campy action movies, she is one hell of a strategist and I better know that before the scene takes place,  because I would require the same of a male character. 

Further. if I see one man who is significantly physically superior to other (closer to average) men I would absolutely reach the conclusion that he had higher male hormone levels than say, myself. I am tall but I am thin and not terribly athletic. I could put the work in but I will never be a bodybuilder without steroids. Some people can be incredible athletes with no unnatural treatments and that's wonderful but I'm not one of them. On the flip side, a sensitive man, let's say much more sensitive than average for argument's sake, could definitely have lower male hormones than the average but not necessarily. And being good with kids is neither a male nor female trait in my opinion, though apparently you would like to assume what my beliefs are based on completely unrelated information. Now, if I were to observe a man with a physical build more in line with the average female I might conclude that he was low on male hormones. That is not an insult, it's simply the way some people are born. 

You are using a strawman in it's purest form. I said that women cannot compete blow for blow with men on a high athletic level and made no claims that women couldn't be good at "something." Every female athlete who reaches even a modicum of success could definitely kick my butt and I am not ashamed to admit it. Mostly because the whole concept of the strawman you erected is sheer nonsense, in my opinion.


----------



## Steerpike

Valentinator said:


> We are talking about statistics here. Many knights were slayed by the dragon, one survived. In this case I suppose 15% make a difference.



Only true if strength is a significant factor to begin with, which is an assumption you make that is not necessarily true. GIven the size ans strength differential, you just just as "realistically" posit that wit and speed are the significant factors and the 15% strength difference is negligible.


----------



## Valentinator

Gryphos said:


> Okay, but you're still implying that women cannot beat the dragon _the same way_ the men can.



I don't know why but you're inferring that not behaving like a man is an insult. I actually think that different behavior is quite smart.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Okay, I'm being deliberately silly here, but...






I don't think 15% here or there would make much difference for this guy - and I can't even quite tell if it's a man or a woman.


----------



## Gryphos

Valentinator said:


> I don't know why but you're inferring that not behaving like a man is an insult. I actually think that different behavior is quite smart.



Again, are you or are you not saying that women _*cannot*_ beat the dragon the same way as the men? This isn't about whether they should, this is purely about whether it is possible. And you appear to have been saying it is not possible for the women to beat the dragon the same way as the men.


----------



## ascanius

edit:  grr.. stupid browser tabs  sorry


----------



## ascanius

Svrtnsse said:


> Okay, I'm being deliberately silly here, but...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think 15% here or there would make much difference for this guy - and I can't even quite tell if it's a man or a woman.



Night elf guy

I found the last 7 pages hilarious, for the seriousness of the topic seems people have a sense of humor.  I really like your first post Jabrosky.


----------



## Steerpike

Svrtnsse said:


> Okay, I'm being deliberately silly here, but...
> 
> 
> I don't think 15% here or there would make much difference for this guy - and I can't even quite tell if it's a man or a woman.



Yeah. It's like saying a 15% stronger beetle is going to have a significant advantage in stopping me from stepping on it.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Steerpike said:


> Yeah. It's like saying a 15% stronger beetle is going to have a significant advantage in stopping me from stepping on it.


A 15% faster beetle may....


----------



## Butterfly

Valentinator said:


> We are talking about statistics here. Many knights were slayed by the dragon, one survived. In this case I suppose 15% make a difference.



So... if many knights were slayed... what did the one surviving knight do differently to all those other knights?


----------



## Svrtnsse

T.Allen.Smith said:


> A 15% faster beetle may....



What if it's wearing makeup and bats its eyelashes in a very alluring way?


----------



## Valentinator

Steerpike said:


> Only true if strength is a significant factor to begin with, which is an assumption you make that is not necessarily true. GIven the size ans strength differential, you just just as "realistically" posit that wit and speed are the significant factors and the 15% strength difference is negligible.



Well I'm not an expert in dragon slaying. Are you? If not I'm not quite sure why do we keep arguing.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Svrtnsse said:


> What if it's wearing makeup and bats its eyelashes in a very alluring way?


Hopefully that wouldn't make a difference for Steerpike.


----------



## Svrtnsse

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Hopefully that wouldn't make a difference for Steerpike.



Well, you know how cats are...


----------



## Sheilawisz

I already mentioned Alice and the Jabberwocky in this thread, but I wanted to share a clip of the full battle just in case anyone is interested:

[video=youtube_share;kDmJj73G_JA]http://youtu.be/kDmJj73G_JA[/video]

That's some Dragon Slaying! XD


----------



## Butterfly

A cat yodels 'Jingle Bells' - YouTube


----------



## cupiscent

Svrtnsse said:


> What if it's wearing makeup and bats its eyelashes in a very alluring way?



I do love a man in make-up...


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Valentinator said:


> Well I'm not an expert in dragon slaying. Are you? If not I'm not quite sure why do we keep arguing.



Your dragon.  Your knight.  Your argument.  Did you say this without having a solid reasoning in mind, then?


----------



## ascanius

Valentinator said:


> Well I'm not an expert in dragon slaying. Are you? If not I'm not quite sure why do we keep arguing.



Steerpike please tell me your a dragon slaying expert, you'll be my hero.


----------



## Valentinator

Butterfly said:


> So... if many knights were slayed... what did the one surviving knight do differently to all those other knights?



Maybe he was slightly better in fighting than other knights, no? What kind of answer are you expecting from me?


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

ascanius said:


> Steerpike please tell me your a dragon slaying expert, you'll be my hero.


I saw a Komodo Dragon run from a group of photographers on YouTube. Does that count?


----------



## Steerpike

Valentinator said:


> Well I'm not an expert in dragon slaying. Are you? If not I'm not quite sure why do we keep arguing.



Is this a serious reply? As fantasy writers we write about things that aren't real. You have to be able to draw logical conclusions or make rational assumptions based on common knowledge. If you had to be an expert on dragons to write about them there wouldn't be any books with them.


----------



## Trick

A. E. Lowan said:


> Just going to leave this here to make a point -



That is impressive and she could probably beat many/most men. I doubt she could best Bruce Lee or even Jet Li for that matter. My own point, for what it's worth (about $0.02), is not that women cannot achieve athletic greatness but that the highest level of athletic greatness is dominated by men.


----------



## Devor

Trick said:


> I challenge anyone, however, to find a real life example of one who did not have a hormone imbalance, whether that imbalance was purposeful or not.



Okay, but why would it matter?  Your hormones are a part of you.  They're triggered by things that you do and experiences that you have.  Your upbringing and your choices will affect your biology on the hormonal level.

If your point is that hormones make a difference, and you'll still see it if we could somehow look at the hormones of women who behave a certain way or not, then absolutely.  But a woman who succeeds and has a higher than average testosterone level is in no way an anomaly.  Nor would it be a simple matter of a woman behaving like that just because she has a hormone imbalance.  Her body and her hormones would have adjusted to her behavior.  They're a part of her.




Valentinator said:


> My point was that both genders have biases and stereotypes. Together they create sort of equilibrium. The last part is kind of subjective and a matter of personal perception.



I think you might be missing the point.  The hero and the villain are both important.  Between the two they're also diverse.  As a stereotype, the women are mostly being left out.  It's not just that men are brave knights and women are courtly ladies.  It's that men are important to the story, and women are not.

Yes, there are male stereotypes, and I've known a few people who were more than a little messed up by them.  Maybe if you were to isolate the spectrum of stereotypes and biases you might have an argument that there's a range in which they're both pretty significant.

But I'm not sure how you can casually jump the hurdle between being important or not.  It seems like a bias that's pretty clearly on a different scale to me.



Mythopoet said:


> We all use stereotypes. Every single one of us. Man and woman. We use stereotypes in the sense of placing people in groups with labels because we cannot actually process the ridiculous amount of people in the world around us. We don't have the capacity to think of all the people as individuals. So we put them in groups and we attach labels to help us. Most people don't do this to devalue others or to attack them. It's just a coping mechanism for living in a big world with lots of people.



Maybe a little.  In that sense stereotypes are a little like your standard trope, a familiar launching pad for creating a common understanding of the topic.  It's just that, we can't ignore that stereotypes affect real people.

People are different.  I'll say that over and over and over.  People are different and we should try to understand those differences.  But we need to get byond the dumb, simple version of those differences and understand how they shape and affect people.

Sure, everyone stereotypes.  Maybe I'm crazy, but to me, that sounds like another reason to try not to.




Svrtnsse said:


> What if it's wearing makeup and bats its eyelashes in a very alluring way?



_*facepalm*
_


----------



## Valentinator

A. E. Lowan said:


> Your dragon.  Your knight.  Your argument.  Did you say this without having a solid reasoning in mind, then?



Oh, my dragon? Than it's easy. My dragon is not that big and increased physical strength actually helps to kill him. Are we done?


----------



## Steerpike

Svrtnsse said:


> What if it's wearing makeup and bats its eyelashes in a very alluring way?



Eye-batting only works on me when my daughter does it, whether she is wearing makeup or not. She can pretty much get her way, within some rather broad limits


----------



## Butterfly

Valentinator said:


> Maybe he was slightly better in fighting than other knights, no? What kind of answer are you expecting from me?



I have no idea. I was curious, kind of brainstorming the possibilities and ideas.


----------



## ascanius

Steerpike said:


> Eye-batting only works on me when my daughter does it, whether she is wearing makeup or not. She can pretty much get her way, within some rather broad limits



So basically your a talking magic ring wrapped around her finger.



Trick said:


> That is impressive and she could probably beat many/most men. I doubt she could best Bruce Lee or even Jet Li for that matter. My own point, for what it's worth (about $0.02), is not that women cannot achieve athletic greatness but that the highest level of athletic greatness is dominated by men.



While I agree with sex diterminism based on biology I think the recent posts arguing for are way to heavy handed.  Yes men have an advantage in all sports where strength count a lot, based of bio fine but it doesn't mean they are not good at that sport or incapable compared to a guy.  And not all sports are strength intensive.  Hell with the best rock climbers in the world it's a pretty even mix.  It takes more than strength, actually your an idiot if you try to power through.

Edit:  I think I need to work on my humor


----------



## Butterfly

Butterfly said:


> I have no idea. I was curious, kind of brainstorming the possibilities and ideas.



Actually... I think I've worked it out after several minutes of pondering.

The survivor is the one who came to fight last, after the dragon had fought and killed all the other knights. They've all had their battles, probably quite a few made their hits and left their wounds. So he came when the dragon was weakened and wounded by all the others hard work and simply finished it off.

That seems to make more sense than it being down to a matter of strength, stamina, weaponry differences. After all they were all knights, all trained to fight, all likely would have a similar strength base, stamina and fitness and a similar quality of weaponry. So the dragon must have been weakened first...


----------



## Valentinator

> I think you might be missing the point.  The hero and the villain are both important.  Between the two they're also diverse.  As a stereotype, the women are mostly being left out.  It's not just that men are brave knights and women are courtly ladies.  It's that men are important to the story, and women are not.
> 
> Yes, there are male stereotypes, and I've known a few people who were more than a little messed up by them.  Maybe if you were to isolate the spectrum of stereotypes and biases you might have an argument that there's a range in which they're both pretty significant.
> 
> But I'm not sure how you can casually jump the hurdle between being important or not.  It seems like a bias that's pretty clearly on a different scale to me.



I think the reason why women are often being left out is because many of the stories are about war. And men are predisposed to make wars that's why they are always in the middle of the action. My point is not to exclude females but to give them different roles. IMO, female warriors 'men with breasts' type is as stereotypical as housewife type.


----------



## Valentinator

Steerpike said:


> Is this a serious reply? As fantasy writers we write about things that aren't real. You have to be able to draw logical conclusions or make rational assumptions based on common knowledge. If you had to be an expert on dragons to write about them there wouldn't be any books with them.



OK, as you wish. My dragon is not that big. A knight can fight him. And strength matters because he needs to cut through the scales that protect vital organs. There are no weak spots. 15% in this case make huge difference. Does it make sense?


----------



## cupiscent

Valentinator said:


> I think the reason why women are often being left out is because many of the stories are about war. And men are predisposed to make wars that's why they are always in the middle of the action. My point is not to exclude females but to give them different roles. IMO, female warriors 'men with breasts' type is as stereotypical as housewife type.



Which just raises a bigger question for me: why is the story of the men's "action" privileged for telling over the story of the women trying to maintain civilisation back home while the men are killing each other?


----------



## ascanius

Valentinator said:


> I think the reason why women are often being left out is because many of the stories are about war. And men are predisposed to make wars that's why they are always in the middle of the action. My point is not to exclude females but to give them different roles. IMO, female warriors 'men with breasts' type is as stereotypical as housewife type.



Ok dude I agree with guys and gals being different and taking into account biology but your painting the house with shop broom.  People are predisposed to react to a chemical stimuli at the cellular level pulling that out to making war is not predisposed.  I have gene xyzb I'm predisposed to have heart disease(made up gene I'm fine....I think).  The cellular level interactions of the brain are way to complex to blame war mongering on the biology of just one sex.

For f's sake why does it keep double posting or whatever its doing adding old quotes


----------



## Steerpike

Valentinator said:


> OK, as you wish. My dragon is not that big. A knight can fight him. And strength matters because he needs to cut through the scales that protect vital organs. There are no weak spots. 15% in this case make huge difference. Does it make sense?



If you like, but you're doing some serious backpedaling from your previous over-arching generalizations.


----------



## Devor

Valentinator said:


> I think the reason why women are often being left out is because many of the stories are about war. And men are predisposed to make wars that's why they are always in the middle of the action. My point is not to exclude females but to give them different roles.



Having a reason for it, good or not, doesn't mean there aren't significant negative consequences to it.  And in this case, they affect real women.

And don't get me wrong.  I'm not left right or center, but kind of zig zagging across the board, here.  I know that.  If you want to write about men at war, that's great.  But it seems weird not to acknowledge that the history of books which leave women out has done some harm, especially insomuch as those are the books which are setting the tropes used by modern writers.

It's one thing to say, most stories are about war, so they don't have many women.  It's another to forget _why_ so many stories are about war in the first place.




> IMO, female warriors 'men with breasts' type is as stereotypical as housewife type.



I think there's truth in that.


----------



## Steerpike

You can write women in war, as soldiers, without resorting to a men with breasts stereotype. See, for example, Elizabeth Moon's character Paks. Moon herself was in the Marine Corps, as I recall.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

Steerpike said:


> You can write women in war, as soldiers, without resorting to a men with breasts stereotype. See, for example, Elizabeth Moon's character Paks. Moon herself was in the Marine Corps, as I recall.


You can see it in real history too. As I posted before, look at Jean de Clisson or any of the similar links people posted in this thread.


----------



## Steerpike

T.Allen.Smith said:


> You can see it in real history too. As I posted before, look at Jean de Clisson or any of the similar links people posted in this thread.



I saw that. Good point!


----------



## Trick

Devor said:


> ... it seems weird not to acknowledge that the history of books which leave women out has done some harm, especially insomuch as those are the books which are setting the tropes used by modern writers.



I definitely agree. Not to mention the arguments it causes


----------



## ascanius

@Valentinator.

I think I get what you mean by women can fight the dragon differently, you need to explain things better.  It's the same thing with rock climbing women don't have the upper body streangth to power through a route, they don't try.  They use their legs and reach the top while the guy is stuck half way exhausted.


----------



## Valentinator

Steerpike said:


> If you like, but you're doing some serious backpedaling from your previous over-arching generalizations.



OK I can give you more precise answer. 



			
				Steerpike; said:
			
		

> Only true if strength is a significant factor to begin with, which is an assumption you make that is not necessarily true. GIven the size ans strength differential, you just just as "realistically" posit that wit and speed are the significant factors and the 15% strength difference is negligible.



Somehow you are inferring that strong people lack speed. Well it's not true. Strong people are also fast, because speed requires strong muscles. Just look how sprinters look like. This is not a role-playing game where dexterity and strength are completely separated. Talking about wit - that's actually a good way for a female to succeed. I have nothing against that. And I actually told before that a woman would choose a different, more indirect way of killing the dragon (I was talking about intelligence).



> I think I get what you mean by women can fight the dragon differently, you need to explain things better. It's the same thing with rock climbing women don't have the upper body streangth to power through a route, they don't try. They use their legs and reach the top while the guy is stuck half way exhausted.



OK, my bad. I'll try better next time.


----------



## A. E. Lowan

Valentinator said:


> I think the reason why women are often being left out is because many of the stories are about war. *And men are predisposed to make wars that's why they are always in the middle of the action.* My point is not to exclude females but to give them different roles. IMO, female warriors 'men with breasts' type is as stereotypical as housewife type.



Seriously, read "We Have Always Fought."  



Valentinator said:


> OK, as you wish. My dragon is not that big. A knight can fight him. And strength matters because he needs to cut through the scales that protect vital organs. There are no weak spots. 15% in this case make huge difference. Does it make sense?



Strength is useful for brute force action against stationary objects, like chopping firewood and taking a sledgehammer to a wall.  You're discounting endurance, speed, and precision, which all come into play in combat.

I would suggest doing a little more research into actual fighting before attempting the "strength is superior to all" argument.


----------



## Trick

A. E. Lowan said:


> Strength is useful for brute force action against stationary objects



That seems sort of short sighted. Strength is also useful to make mobile things become stationary. KO or kill, doesn't really matter. I think you're discounting strength. Speed is directly related to strength. I don't know if you've ever wrestled a big guy but I have and regardless of how much more endurance, speed or precision I had, he only needed to get me in a hold one time and it was over. In the case of certain martial arts there is more balance than that but, strength is very often the determining factor in an unskilled fight. In a skilled fight, it still makes a big difference. You might land twenty punches but if Andre the Giant just lands one...

I know Andre is the exception, just making a point. A friend of my family was security at a hockey game. He watched a little guy (5'6" maybe 120lbs) pick a fight with a big guy (over 6', 250 lbs or so). A lot of shoving took place and then abruptly ended when the big man punched the small man once and killed him. He didn't mean to and cried in the office while he waited for the police. The little guy was definitely faster but how much did that really matter?


----------



## Steerpike

Valentinator said:


> Somehow you are inferring that strong people lack speed.



No, I'm not. You've made that up entirely, presumably to bolster your faltering arguments. Speed isn't only about strength, however. Watch an NFL game and see some very strong, large lineman try to catch a lithe, mobile quarterback.


----------



## Steerpike

A. E. Lowan said:


> I would suggest doing a little more research into actual fighting before attempting the "strength is superior to all" argument.



Yeah. Or, joining the SCA would disabuse one of the "strength uber alles" argument pretty fast. Watching those tournaments, it is not often I see the strongest competitor win.


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

A. E. Lowan said:


> I would suggest doing a little more research into actual fighting before attempting the "strength is superior to all" argument.



Practical experience is a better education, in my view. Mine has shown that brute strength ranks #4 on the list.  

A pure, unadulterated mean streak is my #1 determinant, followed by toughness, then skill/experience.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

I'm curious as to what your #3 is now. Aside from that you have strength at #4, your what-counts-in-battle list is similar to my top 3:

Strength
Skill
How far you're willing to go in a fight (I agree this is #1! - Same idea as your mean streak, but phrased differently.)

I suppose if I split skill into training and actual fighting experience, that might be your top 4 list. (?)


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

1- Mean streak  
2- Toughness  
3- Skill/Experience  
4- Strength



Legendary Sidekick said:


> I suppose if I split skill into training and actual fighting experience, that might be your top 4 list. (?)


I'll take experience over skill anytime. I grouped them for convenience.


----------



## Svrtnsse

Well everyone, it's been fun (at least as far as procrastinating at work goes), but it's time to call it. I'm gonna go home and work on the exciting grand finale of my WIP, which, while awesome, will sadly not feature any dragons at all.


----------



## Guy

Concerning fighting:  skill and willingness. There are people who are skilled but aren't willing to take a life. They're usually defeated by those who are willing.

Concerning female v male characters:  just write the damn character, already. Forget boobs or plumbing and just write the bleeping character.


----------



## cupiscent

Guy said:


> Concerning female v male characters:  just write the damn character, already. Forget boobs or plumbing and just write the bleeping character.



Not to sound like a broken record: but please don't just "forget plumbing". Consider whether you're defaulting to one type of plumbing without thinking, and whether things might be more interesting with a little more diversity represented in aforementioned bleeping character. And if you then decide that yes, the characters all need to have that particular kind of plumbing and/or relationship between their sense of themselves and that plumbing, then fine. Just think about it, is all.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

T.Allen.Smith said:


> 1- Mean streak
> 2- Toughness
> 3- Skill/Experience
> 4- Strength
> 
> 
> I'll take experience over skill anytime. I grouped them for convenience.


Ah, I see now. I was lumping toughness and strength together, though I can see why you wouldn't.


----------



## Guy

cupiscent said:


> Not to sound like a broken record: but please don't just "forget plumbing". Consider whether you're defaulting to one type of plumbing without thinking, and whether things might be more interesting with a little more diversity represented in aforementioned bleeping character. And if you then decide that yes, the characters all need to have that particular kind of plumbing and/or relationship between their sense of themselves and that plumbing, then fine. Just think about it, is all.


Not sure what your point is. Every writer has their own method, but when I create a character I start with personality and go from there. My MC is an exceptionally gifted warrior, but has no desire to conquer or dominate or harm anyone. The character's main ambition is to simply be left alone but is forcibly dragged into the world and forced to deal with it. I'm interested in telling this person's story with a focus on how these personality traits interact with each other, how the character deals with them and with the challenges encountered in the story. For what I want to focus on in this story and how I want to tell it, the character's genitals are completely irrelevant.


----------



## Trick

Guy said:


> Not sure what your point is. Every writer has their own method, but when I create a character I start with personality and go from there. My MC is an exceptionally gifted warrior, but has no desire to conquer or dominate or harm anyone. The character's main ambition is to simply be left alone but is forcibly dragged into the world and forced to deal with it. I'm interested in telling this person's story with a focus on how these personality traits interact with each other, how the character deals with them and with the challenges encountered in the story. For what I want to focus on in this story and how I want to tell it, the character's genitals are completely irrelevant.



I think that cupiscent was saying that is not always the case and you should consider gender, at the very least to eliminate it from important factors influencing your character. It is usually an affecting aspect of a person's life but if you have thought about it enough to know that it doesn't matter, that's enough for most people.


----------



## cupiscent

Guy said:


> Not sure what your point is. Every writer has their own method, but when I create a character I start with personality and go from there. My MC is an exceptionally gifted warrior, but has no desire to conquer or dominate or harm anyone. The character's main ambition is to simply be left alone but is forcibly dragged into the world and forced to deal with it. I'm interested in telling this person's story with a focus on how these personality traits interact with each other, how the character deals with them and with the challenges encountered in the story. For what I want to focus on in this story and how I want to tell it, the character's genitals are completely irrelevant.



Much as Trick noted, yes. (Sorry, Trick, I seem to have run out of "thanks" today, courtesy of this wild rampaging thread.  )

a) Not everyone does it your way, Guy. Gender can be an assumed non-choice (or unthinking default-choice) earlier in the character or story creation process than you've suggested is the case for you.
b) Presumably at some point, your character gets a gender regardless of the importance of genitals or otherwise. Whenever the decision takes place, I'm just advocating for a consideration of all options (hey, yeah, _all_ options; I'm all for thinking beyond the notion of two genders as well, but baby steps).
c) Gender has a role in your worldbuilding - even if gender is a non-issue in your world, that contrast with the highly gendered world of your readers is interesting and the delivery of the world to the audience in that regard should be thought about. If gender _is_ an issue in your world, your character's gender will be a facet of who they are and how they relate to the world.

I _wish_ gender was irrelevant to who people are. I wish we could just ignore it as storytellers. But it isn't, and I don't think it does any justice to characters, stories or readers to ignore it.


----------



## Valentinator

Steerpike said:


> No, I'm not. You've made that up entirely, presumably to bolster your faltering arguments. Speed isn't only about strength, however. Watch an NFL game and see some very strong, large lineman try to catch a lithe, mobile quarterback.



Well that's a nice substitution you made. Now I have to compare male linemen to male quarterbacks. How about comparing male linemen to female linemen and male quarterbacks to female quarterbacks? It's slightly more logical, don't you think?


----------



## glutton

In real life, the 15 percent stronger thing isn't really accurate - if you look at weightlifting records, the strongest men are usually about 30-50 percent stronger than the strongest women in the same weight range, depending on what lifts you look at.

That said, since when does _dragon fighting_ in melee bear even the slightest similarity to 'realistic' writing? Fighting a typically portrayed dragon is like fighting a tank with a flamethrower that can fly... any knight without massive magical help should be crushed in an instant. A tail flick from the dragon would turn the knight into a bag of pulped flesh and shattered bones, a breath would burn the knight to death through a shield male or female. I mean, a human with a handheld weapon would probably get murdered by a lion or gorilla unless they killed it in the first blow, a pack of such animals would be nothing to a dragon. What I'm saying isn't that you shouldn't write a knight fighting a dragon, but if you do, you're probably already letting the character go past human limits and at that point, their genitals should hardly be a big deal compared to the fact they're blocking the equivalent of a battering ram using a piece of wood/metal strapped to their forearm.

Let's face it, any melee character capable of 'dragon fighting' in the usual depicted manner if we're being consistent with their abilities should be able to grab the strongest real life man by the throat with one hand, toss him across the room through a wall into a bedroom and have their way with him... whether the dragon fighter is a 6'4 240 lb man or a 5'2 120 lb woman. I may be exaggerating slightly but not by much. In my writing which is full of feats like dragon fighting I just embrace the unrealism and assume any top tier warrior has the 'Exceed Human Limit' ability to some degree lol.

Also if we accept the existence of stuff like magic without question in most fantasy worlds why does anyone have an issue accepting that women may be closer to men in strength in a given fantasy world than in real life?


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

cupiscent said:


> If gender _is_ an issue in your world, your character's gender will be a facet of who they are and how they relate to the world.


I think GRRM does a nice job with this.

I don't know if he's a sexist, a feminist, or if he's as gray in this area as some of his characters are in the between-good-and-evil sense. But just on the merit of his writing...

His world (in _ASoIaF_) is a very sexist world, horrible for either gender, really, but women are definitely objectified there. The expectations are different for each gender, and even crime and punishment is different. ("Take the Black" vs. "Walk of Shame")

You see clear physical differences that are often as expected for each gender, but you have characters that beat those odds: Arya outperforms boys her age in skilled combat, and Brienne is stronger than most men and highly skilled. Her trainer taught her to use male pride (as in "I can't lose to HER!") to her advantage.

Tyrion is a strong character, but not physically strong. A non-dwarf/non-cripple who lacks "manly muscle" is Sam, who is not only out of shape but also has an internal battle with cowardice. The world expects Sam to be strong because he is male. Another expectation of a man is seen when a virgin prince wants to marry a widow. His bodyguard warns him that he'll look weak, since the widow is obviously experienced. So of course the prince finds a way to look "strong."

I don't know if GRRM is overrated or really just _that good_, but where his writing fits in with this conversation, I think he's a writer to emulate. He has a decent gender mix of strong, weak, good, evil and "gray" characters. Gender is an important part of the character, whether it's biological or societal, and those "explanations" do eventually show up (like Brienne recalling her trainer's advice on male pride), but it isn't really needed to sell the character...

What I read in his books aren't gender-bent characters successfully explained.

I read about interesting characters with interesting arcs.


----------



## glutton

Svrtnsse said:


> Okay, I'm being deliberately silly here, but...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think 15% here or there would make much difference for this guy - and I can't even quite tell if it's a man or a woman.



There is no way in hell a man or woman is beating that without going beyond realistic human limits, whether due to magic/magical gear or just plain superhuman skill/strength/speed/toughness. It's like a mouse with metal claws trying to attack a human.


----------



## Guy

cupiscent said:


> Much as Trick noted, yes. (Sorry, Trick, I seem to have run out of "thanks" today, courtesy of this wild rampaging thread.  )
> 
> a) Not everyone does it your way, Guy. Gender can be an assumed non-choice (or unthinking default-choice) earlier in the character or story creation process than you've suggested is the case for you.
> b) Presumably at some point, your character gets a gender regardless of the importance of genitals or otherwise. Whenever the decision takes place, I'm just advocating for a consideration of all options (hey, yeah, _all_ options; I'm all for thinking beyond the notion of two genders as well, but baby steps).
> c) Gender has a role in your worldbuilding - even if gender is a non-issue in your world, that contrast with the highly gendered world of your readers is interesting and the delivery of the world to the audience in that regard should be thought about. If gender _is_ an issue in your world, your character's gender will be a facet of who they are and how they relate to the world.
> 
> I _wish_ gender was irrelevant to who people are. I wish we could just ignore it as storytellers. But it isn't, and I don't think it does any justice to characters, stories or readers to ignore it.


Okay, I think I see what you're saying, and I don't dispute any of it. Maybe I'm reading things wrong, but it seems to me some people get too hung up on it and make gender the main influence on their character and my earlier post was in response to that. The idea of not having a female character do something because, well, she's a woman and a woman would never do such-and-such, or the character must do something or feel a certain way because that's what women do or feel. It's an idea I just find downright silly, particularly in a genre like fantasy.


----------



## Valentinator

I guess the original trope about knights fighting dragons suggests that dragons weren't the size of Godzilla. Otherwise, there is no way a dragon can catch a princess without turning her into a bloody pulp. In this case individual physical abilities matter.


----------



## Steerpike

Valentinator said:


> Well that's a nice substitution you made. Now I have to compare male linemen to male quarterbacks. How about comparing male linemen to female linemen and male quarterbacks to female quarterbacks? It's slightly more logical, don't you think?




This reply makes no sense whatsoever. You should think about what you're reading instead of being in such a hurry to argue that you simply post the first thing that comes to mind. The comment was only about the relationship between speed and strength, not about gender. I think that is exceedingly clear on the face of the post, and since it was written in plain English, and this is a site full of writers who presumably have at least a basic competency with reading and writing the written word, I can only conclude you're either not reading before you reply or you aren't  engaging your mind in your rush to argue.


----------



## glutton

BTW typically in my writing I default to having high end female warriors being 10-20 percent weaker than high end males, so there is some sexual dimorphism retained but not to the same degree as real life. However if the character has 'Exceed Human Limit MAX' lol, then she'll probably be 95-100 percent as strong as top end males. It's pretty easy to identify which characters have that in a given story XD eg. the 17 year old girls who are battling 100 ton dragons with their nonmagical sword and running through stone melting fire breath because they're just that awesome.


----------



## Valentinator

Steerpike said:


> This reply makes no sense whatsoever. You should think about what you're reading instead of being in such a hurry to argue that you simply post the first thing that comes to mind. The comment was only about the relationship between speed and strength, not about gender. I think that is exceedingly clear on the face of the post, and since it was written in plain English, and this is a site full of writers who presumably have at least a basic competency with reading and writing the written word, I can only conclude you're either not reading before you reply or you aren't  engaging your mind in your rush to argue.



It's not my fault that you are deviating from original idea I was trying to convey. I was talking about speed and strength in relation to gender, not about intricate relationships between strength and speed. You comparisons of athletes of the same gender have nothing to do with that.


----------



## Steerpike

glutton said:


> It's pretty easy to identify which characters have that in a given story XD eg. the 17 year old girls who are battling 100 ton dragons with their nonmagical sword and running through stone melting fire breath because they're just that awesome.



They should form a guild called The Axis of Awesome. It could be a series (despite the fact that the name is stolen from a comedy band).


----------



## Steerpike

Valentinator said:


> It's not my fault that you are deviating from original idea I was trying to convey. I was talking about speed and strength in relation to gender, not about intricate relationships between strength and speed. You comparisons of athletes of the same gender have nothing to do with that.



Valentinator:

I don't know if you're just trolling at this point, but it is clear you aren't putting even the most basic level of thought into things before replying. If you were, you'd see very well how a comment on the relationship between strength and speed was precisely on point with respect to the prior comments you made. I'll leave others who have time to waste to argue with you, and I'll confine my responses to those who show the desire and ability to think before hitting the reply button. Carry on.


----------



## Valentinator

Steerpike said:


> Valentinator:
> 
> I don't know if you're just trolling at this point, but it is clear you aren't putting even the most basic level of thought into things before replying. If you were, you'd see very well how a comment on the relationship between strength and speed was precisely on point with respect to the prior comments you made. I'll leave others who have time to waste to argue with you, and I'll confine my responses to those who show the desire and ability to think before hitting the reply button. Carry on.



Oh I see. You analyze all my comments separately while all of them are interconnected. You thought subject the changed while I was discussing new subject *within* the previous topic of discussion. Anyway, I admit that I'm reading the thread quite superficially since I'm a little bit busy right now. Perhaps, it affects the quality of my replies.

For the sake of clarity, I'll summarize my point:

IMO, in real life the best female knights have no chance against the best male knights in fighting in 99% of the cases. The best male fighters are stronger, there is no reason to believe that they are at the same time slower or somehow less skillful. Better fighting ability is derived from biology like higher percentage of muscles per body weight, bigger size, higher level of testosterone etc. Comparison of sport records only confirms it. Female knights can definitely surpass the male knight in a single fight, but it is just more unlikely and therefore less realistic. Female knights can still easily win in multiple less straightforward ways. Enhanced fighting abilities actually help to slay dragons of the reasonable size (not MMORPG boss size).   

I want to emphasize that that's my personal opinion based on long-term experience in combat sports. It' fine with me if you have other opinion.


----------



## glutton

Valentinator said:


> Oh I see. You analyze all my comments separately while all of them are interconnected. You thought subject the changed while I was discussing new subject *within* the previous topic of discussion. Anyway, I admit that I'm reading the thread quite superficially since I'm a little bit busy right now. Perhaps, it affects the quality of my replies.
> 
> For the sake of clarity, I'll summarize my point:
> 
> IMO, in real life the best female knights have no chance against the best male knights in fighting in 99% of the cases. The best male fighters are stronger, there is no reason to believe that they are at the same time slower or somehow less skillful. Better fighting ability is derived from biology like higher percentage of muscles per body weight, bigger size, higher level of testosterone etc. Comparison of sport records only confirms it. Female knights can definitely surpass the male knight in a single fight, but it is just more unlikely and therefore less realistic. Female knights can still easily win in multiple less straightforward ways. Enhanced fighting abilities actually help to slay dragons of the reasonable size (not MMORPG boss size).
> 
> I want to emphasize that that's my personal opinion based on long-term experience in combat sports. No reason to insult me if you have other opinion.



You said something before about how a female knight defeating a dragon with hack-and-slash would make the dragon seem like a weak dragon and thus the battle is less impressive... if it's less likely for a female knight to be able to do so, couldn't it just make the knight more impressive - for a female knight - than a male knight doing it? Why would the dragon necessarily be weak especially if it's already established that it has killed many male knights for example?

If a main antagonist who's established to be one of the strongest guys in the world engages the female love interest only to be tossed around and knocked down for a fair bit of time, then hits her with a massive combo attack with another powerful character right in the face and fails to even knock her out, that doesn't make him suddenly weak... what it means is that she is just. that. AWESOME lol


----------



## Trick

glutton said:


> Also if we accept the existence of stuff like magic without question in most fantasy worlds why does anyone have an issue accepting that women may be closer to men in strength in a given fantasy world than in real life?



I have no problem with it if it's established. My issue lies in having a character who, to my knowledge as the reader, is exactly like an earthling and does something off the wall and it breaks the immersion. A woman fighting a man, and they have similar training and experience, is fine with me as long as she doesn't show superior strength to him; again, unless it's been made clear that she's an exception (which in real life is rare but doesn't have to be in a book) like Brienne in ASOIAF.

EDIT: To enforce my point, my current WIP having mostly male characters started this thread; luckily that problem is solved. The sequel will have one character from the first book become a major POV, the original MC's little sister, all grown up. She will be a magically enhanced person just like her brother becomes in book 1 and though he'll have more experience, they'll basically be physical equals. The sequel's villain will be a queen from another nation who is also magically enhanced. She will be the original MC's superior in every way. It will be his sister who tips the balance. At the same time, the sister is shaping up to be a terribly interesting character. And yes, terribly is the right adjective.


----------



## Valentinator

glutton said:


> You said something before about how a female knight defeating a dragon with hack-and-slash would make the dragon seem like a weak dragon and thus the battle is less impressive... if it's less likely for a female knight to be able to do so, couldn't it just make the knight more impressive - for a female knight - than a male knight doing it? Why would the dragon necessarily be weak especially if it's already established that it has killed many male knights for example?



Well, based on the previous post that would mean that the dragon slayer wasn't the best of the best. It's kind of lowering the stakes. Of course, if we apply some real life rules to the book. Otherwise, definitely any princess wearing chain-mail bikini can be the toughest warrior in the world.  



> If a main antagonist who's established to be one of the strongest guys in the world engages the female love interest only to be tossed around and knocked down for a fair bit of time, then hits her with a massive combo attack with another powerful character right in the face and fails to even knock her out, that doesn't make him suddenly weak... what it means is that she is just. that. AWESOME lol


Sure. It's awesome if it's explained.


----------



## glutton

Trick said:


> I have no problem with it if it's established. My issue lies in having a character who, to my knowledge as the reader, is exactly like an earthling and does something off the wall and it breaks the immersion.



Well, when you have the female fighters usually being not as much weaker than males as in real life but still slightly weaker, there isn't really an easy way to convey that as a trend beyond showing it in the battles and/or dialogue involving said characters. Personally I just rely on the overall tone of my stories in that if you're going to worry about female fighters only being slightly weaker than males, there are other things that will probably bother you more... like the non-massive girl who hurls a boulder knocking down a giant dragon, but outright admits to being weaker than another (male) character lol.


----------



## glutton

Valentinator said:


> Well, based on the previous post that would mean that the dragon slayer wasn't the best of the best. It's kind of lowering the stakes. Of course, if we apply some real life rules to the book. Otherwise, definitely any princess wearing chain-mail bikini can be the toughest warrior in the world.
> 
> Sure. It's awesome if it's explained.



If a female character is established to be one of the best of the best straight up fighters in the world, I would tend to infer from that that women in that universe are physically closer to men than in real life.


----------



## Valentinator

glutton said:


> If a female character is established to be one of the best of the best straight up fighters in the world, I would tend to infer from that that women in that universe are physically closer to men than in real life.



Yes, and that would require some additional world-building.


----------



## glutton

Valentinator said:


> Yes, and that would require some additional world-building.



Not really, if men are still on average stronger than women - plus the whole childbirth thing - then the majority of warriors would still be male and no further explanation would be needed within the story. There just might a few uber female badasses walking around XD


----------



## Valentinator

glutton said:


> Not really, if men are still on average stronger than women - plus the whole childbirth thing - then the majority of warriors would still be male and no further explanation would be needed within the story. There just might a few uber female badasses walking around XD



OK, approaches could be different.


----------



## cupiscent

Legendary Sidekick said:


> I think GRRM does a nice job with this.



I absolutely agree! He cops some feminist backlash because nasty things happen to his women (and because in Cersei and Mellisandre there's an aspect where female sexuality is shown as evil), but while they are obviously and definitely living in a patriarchy, nasty things happen to _everyone_ in those books, and I agree that he does a great job of having layered, honest, real characters with motivations, actions, agency and significance to the story and the reader, regardless of gender or other physical feature.


----------



## Trick

glutton said:


> If a female character is established to be one of the best of the best straight up fighters in the world, I would tend to infer from that that women in that universe are physically closer to men than in real life.



Forgive my curiosity but, being a man, I can't answer this question for myself. This may not be the right spot but since this thread has been all over the place: Are there any women on here who, being of average build and strength, wish they were bigger and stronger (closer to the average man)? I'm curious because I think it will help me in writing characters in general. I know several men who were simply born smaller and weaker than average and the majority of them resent bigger guys to some extent and some of them even workout obsessively to become "more manly." I know there are female body builders so some women definitely value strength and muscle mass but it has not been my impression that most women do. 

I would also ask, are there any women on here who are above average in strength and build who wish they were not?


----------



## cupiscent

From there I sit, Trick, there are two aspects to this.

I come from a family of tall women. There's a lot of society pressure that the man be the taller in the relationship. That can be tricky when you're tall. There's a lot of society pressure to be ladylike and dainty and slender and "not mannish". Women who are stronger or tougher often get called "dyke" - in a way that makes it clear it's pejorative. Elite female athletes get called that sort of thing, even though they're women who are clearly the best at what they do and celebrated for it. We're told it's not attractive to be strong.

There is sadly also, in Australia and, from what I hear, in America and Britain as well, a low level but quite pervasive threat of violence against women by men. Women are taught from a young age ways to "stay safe". In that environment, it might be seen that being bigger, stronger, capable of holding our own against a male assailant would be of benefit. On the other hand, that buys into the "the way to be safe from guns is to have a gun" viewpoint, which seems to me to just lead to more people being shot. Plus, however much you train or lift or learn, there's always the chance your attacker will have trained just as much and then - as has been noted here - all else being equal, the man has an advantage.

These two points are possibly related.


----------



## Trick

Thank you cupiscent. Hearing women's perspectives on this is great. 

I was specifically trying to ask, poorly phrased I think, if women ever wished they had simply been born bigger and stronger than average? Many men do, in my experience. And, among the women I know who were born bigger and stronger than average, some seem totally happy and others wish they were more petite. It has always been a conundrum for me. 



cupiscent said:


> On the other hand, that buys into the "the way to be safe from guns is to have a gun" viewpoint, which seems to me to just lead to more people being shot.



Being from North Idaho (famous for a large gun to population ratio) I would softly disagree with this. You are right that more guns definitely can lead to more people getting shot. But, on the flip side, criminals knowing that most homes in this area have guns in them and people who know how to use them (lots of hunting here) has kept home invasion/burglary very low in this area. It's kind of a catch twenty-two, I'll grant. Bringing this back to the original question, being bigger definitely mitigates having crime perpetrated against you in the situations we're discussing simply because the criminal is likely to look for easier prey, since they're all cowards.


----------



## Svrtnsse

I've got a slightly related comment on the matter female athletes.

My sister's quite into sports, and keeps up with athletic events of various kinds - specifically when it comes to running, cross-country skiing, and related sports.
She currently lives in France and one of her pet peeves is how the sports commentators tend to refer to the female athletes in a way very different to male athletes in the same sports. To quote something she said recently: 


> I have been disappointed about how they describe female skiers as "ravishing, gourgeous" etc, rather than "strong, skilled" or other sports related terms.



Basically, she feels the commentators are focusing too much on the appearance of the female athletes, rather than their actual performance.


----------



## Steerpike

Svrtnsse said:


> Basically, she feels the commentators are focusing too much on the appearance of the female athletes, rather than their actual performance.



That's true for females in many areas in which they're in the public eye. Politics, for example.

My ex is an athlete and lifts weights. She played baseball with the boys even into high school, and played basketball for the U.S. team, traveling around Russia and Europe. She was also in the Army, and while in the Army she was able to meet the men's PT standards, and outperformed some of the males. I've seen her beat men at arm-wrestling. She's also quite small, just looking at her, and what you'd consider feminine in appearance (in other words, she doesn't fall into the category suggested above of simply being a large, bruiser of a woman). She's also ridiculously fast when it comes to things like sparring. The point being, she violates a lot of the typical assumptions about what women can do, or about what women have to look like or be built like to accomplish certain things. There's no need for us as writers to be trapped by those assumptions.


----------



## Trick

Steerpike said:


> There's no need for us as writers to be trapped by those assumptions.



I agree, but if the desire exists in some women, I'd like to know. It might help with insights into future characters I write.

It's funny, my wife grew up working hard. Being the oldest and the hardest working of her siblings with a dad that needed help on a lot of projects, she used chainsaws and built decks and fences etc. She is, for her size, very strong. Now I'll point out that she is only five feet tall. I am no athlete and haven't worked out ever other than for a few months in high school but I am over six feet tall, if thin. I am so much stronger than her it's pointless to compare us. And I have to say, every guy I have ever met that was even near my height is stronger than me. Usually by a lot. 

Men and women definitely vary quite a bit from each other and among one another. There are so many feelings and experiences that I've never had and I just want more insight from those who have. I know that my wife has wished she was taller from time to time but in her case that is only because she get's frustrated with clothing sizes and, she has admitted, she thinks women of a more average height are more attractive. Damn magazine models. Of course, when I tell her otherwise, she says I'm just being nice.


----------



## Svrtnsse

I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong here, but I'll give it a go.

Let's say I have a decent idea of what an ideal male body is meant to be like. I know I'm too tall/short/fat/skinny to get there, but I know what the goal is. Depending on where I am in life (not just age) the importance of getting as close as I possibly can to that ideal body varies.
How big a priority my physical appearance is depends on both internal factors and external factors. 
Internal factors can be things like wanting to stay healthy, or being able to move around comfortably. External factors might be things such as wanting to look good in order to impress a mate - or being able to walk around in public with my back straight without being ashamed of my body.
I'm sure you can identify, at least to a certain extent, with how this feels.


My impression, and this is where I might be wrong, is that the internal factors are roughly the same for men and women, but that the external factors put more pressure on women than on men.

I'm not saying there aren't external pressure on men to look a certain way, I'm saying that the pressure to look a certain way is stronger on women, than on men.

That said, how this affects men and women, will vary greatly depending on where the individual finds themselves in life.


----------



## glutton

I haven't had women tell me they want to be bigger and stronger, but in a harsh setting and/or if they or their loved ones are continually bullied, I could totally see it.


----------



## Trick

Svrtnsse said:


> Internal factors can be things like wanting to stay healthy, or being able to move around comfortably. External factors might be things such as wanting to look good in order to impress a mate - or being able to walk around in public with my back straight without being ashamed of my body.
> I'm sure you can identify, at least to a certain extent, with how this feels.
> 
> My impression, and this is where I might be wrong, is that the internal factors are roughly the same for men and women, but that the external factors put more pressure on women than on men.



You may be completely right, I couldn't say. Internal and external factors vary so much just among men that I can't even comment on what they're like for women. I have never cared that much about my appearance (or health for that matter as it has never been an issue) other than wanting to look presentable at work and other important places. At home I couldn't care less. However, I have gained the bad kind of weight recently, for the first time in my life and it has definitely affected my body image, though it's not a lot (yet!). I have always been able to eat and drink to my heart's content and remain under weight. Not so anymore. It will likely spur me to exercise at some point, though it hasn't yet. But that kind of issue isn't really what I'm going for. 

I have often wished that I was simply born more burly, more so when I was a teenager but I know the feeling. I wasn't willing to do the work though, too often preferring to stick my nose in a book. I wanted to be "manlier" just naturally and with some very large brothers, I expected it to happen. Tall happened, big didn't. Fortunately, by that time, I didn't care that much anymore.

I guess I just want to know if women sometimes have a similar feeling but not towards "womanliness." Do any women wish they had been born bigger and stronger, and if so, why?


----------



## glutton

Most of us do live in a relatively civilized society/time... in a 'grimdark' type setting, there would some obvious advantages to having the physical attributes of Alicia the Crimson Boar (a character in my series who is 6'2, 280 lbs, heavily scarred, able to lift a horse and also carries around an axe that could cut said horse in half). Dat criminal discouragement lol.


----------



## Trick

glutton said:


> Most of us do live in a relatively civilized society/time... in a 'grimdark' type setting, there would some obvious advantages to having the physical attributes of Alicia the Crimson Boar (a character in my series who is 6'2, 280 lbs, heavily scarred, able to lift a horse and also carries around an axe that could cut said horse in half). Dat criminal discouragement lol.



True but civilized or not, there is still crime, a lot of which is men against women. And sports are separated in most cases. Are there women who really wish they were big enough to play pro football? I just don't know.


----------



## glutton

Trick said:


> And sports are separated in most cases.



This isn't entirely relevant to the topic, but sports are separated more due to strength and other attributes males have an advantage in like explosiveness and in contact sports, durability, than pure size. There's plenty of overlap in size between male soccer players and women for example...


----------



## glutton

BTW, an alternate way I could see for making top level female warriors more viable in a fantasy setting could be to establish that in that world, women are generally faster and more agile than men, although men are still stronger. Hey, a lot of fighting games basically treated things this way... I prefer my overly stronk and tuff fem brutes though XD


----------



## Trick

glutton said:


> This isn't entirely relevant to the topic, but sports are separated more due to strength and other attributes males have an advantage in like explosiveness and in contact sports, durability, than pure size. There's plenty of overlap in size between male soccer players and women for example...



It is relevant if there are women out there who wish they had those traits, without simply wanting to be a man or feeling that they are a man regardless of the plumbing they were born with.


----------



## glutton

Trick said:


> It is relevant if there are women out there who wish they had those traits, without simply wanting to be a man or feeling that they are a man regardless of the plumbing they were born with.



I meant that what I was saying wasn't very relevant. And there probably are considering the girls who play ball sports with boys in high school etc.


----------



## cupiscent

Now I have that old song "I wish I was a little bit taller" stuck in my head...


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Stuck in my head is They Might Be Giants' "Too Tall Girl." I could only find a YouTube with a low-res shot of Brienne that just… stays like that the whole song. So yeah, I like GoT and I like TMBG but I don't know if they mix well. I mean, she's tall, and I guess Brienne "knows more etiquette than Connecticut" since she doesn't know what Connecticut even is…

Anyway, song in my head. Tap play if curious.






LYRICS:

Fall in love with the too-tall girl
Deleterious and delirious
Fall in love with the too-tall girl
With her magazine
Dressed in aubergine

Too-tall girl can see
Past the rooftops and the trees
Too-tall girl can see
Past the crosstown mall and townie sprawl

There's no kind of guidebook or catalogue
There's no kind of parallel or analogue
Soon you'll just be playing some tag-along
In the world of a girl in a too-tall fog

Fall in love with the too-tall girl
Whispers pretty tones in a megaphone
Fall in love with the too-tall girl
*Knows more etiquette
Than Connecticut*

Too-tall girl can see
Past the rooftops and the trees
Too-tall girl can see
Past the crosstown mall and townie sprawl

To get to her a boy's got to calculate
To get to her a boy's got to estimate
All the walls to clear and the hills to climb
As the months turn to days in this too-tall time


----------



## Steerpike




----------



## Nihal

glutton said:


> If a female character is established to be one of the best of the best straight up fighters in the world, I would tend to infer from that that women in that universe are physically closer to men than in real life.



_No._ No, no no no.

It boggles my mind that in stories that requires no laborious explanations of why a male character is the best of the world despite not being the hulk it's _required_ that you change an entire gender's physical attributes so it's "believable" to some people.

I'm under the impression that if a woman dares to excel at something it'd give a heart attack to a lot of guys there, haha!


----------



## glutton

Nihal said:


> _No._ No, no no no.
> 
> It boggles my mind that in stories that requires no laborious explanations of why a male character is the best of the world despite not being the hulk it's _required_ that you change an entire gender's physical attributes so it's "believable" to some people.
> 
> I'm under the impression that if a woman dares to excel at something it'd give a heart attack to a lot of guys there, haha!



Well, the thing is the strongest men are proven to be 30-50 percent stronger than the strongest women of the same size and they're also larger on average, it is a bit of a stretch to think the most skilled female warrior would be 'more skilled enough' than all male counterparts to make up for that kind of discrepancy. Also I'm talking about traditional straight up melee fighting here, if the woman is the best of the best with a gun or there are some fancy martial arts systems in the world that would be more believable. Or at the least, that particular woman is closer to men than others are and is a 'freak'.


----------



## glutton

Steerpike said:


>



Ronda Rousey is a perfect example of a woman who really could beat up a large majority of men and even been stated by some male fighters to be capable of beating male fighters. Interestingly, she also actually IS put together like a She-Hulk... for her height of 5'6... and absolutely rolls through other women.

'Believe in the power of power' XD. Of course she's super skilled too, but when the skill of both parties is high, the stats begin to matter...


----------



## glutton

BTW, when saying 'best of the best' I'm talking about someone who actually be portrayed as an even match or the _favorite_ in a fight against a monster like Gregor Clegane or Conan, not someone who could pull a win over them as an underdog. In a world with a somewhat realistic approach to combat and no tricks, that would require some significant stats, she wouldn't need to be as strong but 'strong enough' at least. 'Best of the best' implies that the character is a heavy favorite over a large majority of her competitors, if she has a significant physical disadvantage against most of them then why are they so far behind in skill that it doesn't matter? Does the men's training suck, do they all have no talent? XD

BTW if a male character is presented as the best of the best melee fighter, I would also usually assume he has some good strength and if not the strongest, at least stronger than the average man.

I'm pretty sure I've read stuff where a female warrior is shown to not even be strong enough to lift an average man, yet she's portrayed as this awesome fighter even in hand to hand against men without any additional explanation. THAT is annoying. Just give her more strength.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

^Agreed. One thought to add, is you can have speed and skill (and the reach of a longer weapon) overcome a monster like Gregor Clegane, but there's a catch with every _GoT_ fan has been exposed to.

Mountain vs. Viper was a perfect example of speed believably beating strength... and at the same time, it was a perfect example of the cost of a single mistake against a considerably stronger opponent.


----------



## glutton

Yeah, it's not impossible to overcome a physical discrepancy it's just that if you're at a disadvantage against pretty much everyone else it would be that much harder to be consistent enough to seem top tier.

If a female melee fighter is consistently awesome against men without some fancy explanation like an exotic martial art, the two most likely conclusions would be 1. she has great physical abilities, maybe she doesn't have to be as strong as a man but she shouldn't be like 40 percent weaker and also be smaller and have less explosive speed and durability... or 2. all the men suck.

The latter isn't too cool, so I usually assume the former... unless the author specifically mentions the character can't even lift an average male, in which case it's number 2 and I'm annoyed lol.


----------



## Queshire

Sorry, I'm just jumping into this without reading all the way through the thread, but as writers do we even need to address the differences in physical capabilities between the sexes? One of my primary inspirations is anime and manga and it's common in them to have females that are just as powerful fighters as males without any explanation needed to be given. True, they tend to favor certain styles of combat compared to the males, but that's a result of lingering sexism in the writer and the confines of the genre, not a result of their inherent physical capabilities.


----------



## Steerpike

Queshire said:


> Sorry, I'm just jumping into this without reading all the way through the thread, but as writers do we even need to address the differences in physical capabilities between the sexes? One of my primary inspirations is anime and manga and it's common in them to have females that are just as powerful fighters as males without any explanation needed to be given. True, they tend to favor certain styles of combat compared to the males, but that's a result of lingering sexism in the writer and the confines of the genre, not a result of their inherent physical capabilities.



In a fantasy world, you don't really have to. It may simply be that for the people of your world there is little difference in strength levels between males or females, or it may be that magic is prevalent and used to level the playing field.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

I think a lot of this discussion has been focused too much on the writer (by my interpretation). I'm happy to write an average sized huntress taking down a giant monster, but *do my readers buy into it?* I realize that vs. a giant monster, 5'0"/6'0"/7'0" tall man/woman vs. 50'0" long monster... the writer just has to keep the story interesting and probably make the victory _look_ nearly impossible. The reader is forgiving lack of realism because the story is fun.

Ironically, when it's person vs. person, I think the reader _expects_ realism... by one's own definition of what's realistic! That differs for everyone (read this and all prior posts for evidence of that), so then as the writer, you do need to show how mismatched physical differences are applied. There's no character sheet with D&D-ish stats, so I don't think the reader cares if Sir Knight is 40% stronger than Lady Amazon or only 5% stronger. We can forget the % stuff because that's in the writer's head, not on the page. The writer thinks 15%; the reader thinks 30%. Whatever. If the lady is stronger than her male opponent, I think the writer can simply establish that she's physically strong and if she out-muscles the man, there's nothing wrong with that. Her physical strength can be established the moment the reader sees her out-muscle the knight, in fact.

Bottom line: it's not up to the writer to change readers' biases nor is it up to the writer to cater to readers' biases. It's up to the writer to entertain the readers. Where the biases come in is simply this: whether you agree or not, know that biases exist.

If I were a successful author, I might have a better idea of this, but here's what I think is the way to sell your fight scene to readers: Picture the fight in your head; choreograph as you see fit. If you're thinking realistically (based on your own beliefs/experiences, not someone else's), chances are it translates to the page as "close enough" for most readers. If you're writing something fantastical, take realism and exaggerate. The more interesting the story, the more exaggeration (or deviation from biases) you get away with.


----------



## Trick

Nihal said:


> _No._ No, no no no.
> 
> It boggles my mind that in stories that requires no laborious explanations of why a male character is the best of the world despite not being the hulk it's _required_ that you change an entire gender's physical attributes so it's "believable" to some people.
> 
> I'm under the impression that if a woman dares to excel at something it'd give a heart attack to a lot of guys there, haha!



Stories that have male characters as "the best of the world" should contain at least inferable explanations as to why. Perhaps he trained in a special style or was granted magical power. Even then, he must be challenged by characters close in skill to make it interesting and create tension, unless the book is the written equivalent of crappy action flick. 

You seem to think that stating factual things is somehow also saying silly things. You are inferring information that is not being implied. If someone says, "Men are usually bigger and stronger, especially in the highly skilled athletic levels" and "the best athletes in the world by statistics are men." - (run times, weights lifted, baskets made, home-runs hit, swimming times, and on and on with one exception I was recently informed of, rock climbing) They are not saying, "women excelling at anything is preposterous." In fact, the two statements are entirely unrelated.



> If a woman dares to excel at something



At something? You are arguing against a straw man. Women excel at things constantly, I'd bet more often than men do, but that does not change the fact that men tend to be bigger and stronger or that the athletes with the best statistical records are majoritively men. That is simply fact and in no way takes away from the success of women, in sports or in any other field. 

If I say, "that guy is the best." and it turns out that he is, that is not sexist. If you infer that I'm saying, "that guy is the best because women can never succeed at anything without a crazy explanation." you're taking too much of a leap.


----------



## glutton

Steerpike said:


> In a fantasy world, you don't really have to. It may simply be that for the people of your world there is little difference in strength levels between males or females, or it may be that magic is prevalent and used to level the playing field.



Yeah I don't think it needs to be 'addressed', if I see less of a strength difference than would be expected in reality I just assume there is less of a difference in that world as mentioned.


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## Steerpike

glutton said:


> Yeah I don't think it needs to be 'addressed', if I see less of a strength difference than would be expected in reality I just assume there is less of a difference in that world as mentioned.



Me too. It's funny, sometimes, the things we get hung up on as needing explanation, while aerodynamically impossible dragons and talking vermin don't require it.


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## Queshire

I don't like the implication that the world has to be different for men and women to be equal. Yes, that sentence is an intentional misrepresentation of what you said, but it is ultimately the crux of this debate. Battle is the main form of conflict in our stories so it is the easiest measuring stick between characters. The same problem would come up if the main conflict of the story was cooking, courtroom drama, or a children's card game.

There's the fact that men are on average stronger than women, and then there's the concept that men and women are equal. I think as writers we should put more weight on the concepts espoused by our works than conforming to facts.


----------



## Gryphos

Hypothetically, if you have a book with a very small cast. Say, eight people, four of which are women. Now let's say one of those women is renowned as a badass fighter, the strongest fighter of the cast. Does the reader really then require some kind of explanation for this? Obviously it's good to know why she's so good, that's just basic storytelling. But in this case would the reader really be going "hold on a second, in this extremely small cast it's a _woman_ who's the best fighter. And she isn't even magically enhanced! My immersion is totally ruined."

Obviously this example is somewhat exaggerated, as book casts are usually a bit larger. But the point still stands. Your cast of characters does not need to be a microcosm of that world's society. You can have a woman be the best fighter in your novel and not even have to explain it. I can't speak for everyone, but I wouldn't have any problem with that.


----------



## Steerpike

Gryphos said:


> Hypothetically, if you have a book with a very small cast. Say, eight people, four of which are women. Now let's say one of those women is renowned as a badass fighter, the strongest fighter of the cast. Does the reader really then require some kind of explanation for this?



No, they don't. At least, not the reasonable readers you have. There are always going to be those who get hung up on minutiae, or who will make an issue out of it ostensibly for believability but more likely because they have an underlying problem with the concept, but you cannot please everyone and you shouldn't twist your writing to try to mollify the least common denominator.


----------



## Trick

Gryphos said:


> one of those women is renowned as a badass fighter, the strongest fighter of the cast. Does the reader really then require some kind of explanation for this? Obviously it's good to know why she's so good, that's just basic storytelling.



As long as I get backstory, or the hint of one, I'm good and that goes for male and female characters across the board. If a character has a skill I want it to make some sense. If a any character, female or male, is a cook on a ship and then wips out a lock-picking kit and deftly gets through a locked door in seconds, I want to have known they could do that already or be surprised and then find out why they have that skill later, even if it's just implied, i.e. it turns out the cook was an assassin all along, just lying in wait for the right time to strike. An assassin picking a lock makes more sense...

In the case of a female warrior being a renowned badass fighter, well, that's kind of an explanation in itself. She is renowned so... clearly she's lived a life of fighting and had a heck of a knack for it so she survived and got better and better. No reader immersion broken, I'm still reading.


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## Tom

Queshire said:


> I don't like the implication that the world has to be different for men and women to be equal. Yes, that sentence is an intentional misrepresentation of what you said, but it is ultimately the crux of this debate. Battle is the main form of conflict in our stories so it is the easiest measuring stick between characters. The same problem would come up if the main conflict of the story was cooking, courtroom drama, or a children's card game.
> 
> There's the fact that men are on average stronger than women, and then there's the concept that men and women are equal. I think as writers we should put more weight on the concepts espoused by our works than conforming to facts.



Amen. 

I think it all comes down to social conditioning most of the time. The majority of girls are or think they are bad at math because they're told their whole lives that women have inferior spatial and mathematical abilities. The majority of men are or think they are bad at expressing their emotions because they're told their whole lives that real men don't cry, emotion is weakness, etc. 

If social conditioning is changed, what happens? Well, the gender gap is narrowing when it comes to interest/ability in mathematics. As societal opinions of girls' cognitive ability changes, girls are hearing less about their supposed inferiority in math, so they are applying themselves without the fear that they are only going to confirm that "girls are bad at math". 

Unfortunately, for men the situation is getting worse, and for a lot of guys bottling up emotion is channeled into physical violence. Male violence is often an unhealthy expression of anger and frustration at having to "have it all together" all the time and being told that showing emotion is vulnerability (which it is--but it's a _healthy_ vulnerability).

Social conditioning. There you go. Use it, twist it, subvert it. Or in the case of the girls vs. guys debate, change it for the better.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Gryphos said:


> You can have a woman be the best fighter in your novel and not even have to explain it. I can't speak for everyone, but I wouldn't have any problem with that.


An example from popular film... Remember the Colonial Marine named Vasquez from the original ALIENS?

She was an undisputed hard ass, especially among her male counterparts. It required little to no explanation. Simply showing her in combat, along with a breakdown of modern gender barriers (she showered alongside the men with zero attention being paid to the act as strange), was enough to believe she was tough. In fact, the actions of her teammates implied she was the toughest of the group.


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## Steerpike

T.Allen.Smith said:


> An example from popular film... Remember the Colonial Marine named Vasquez from the original ALIENS?



Yep. Vasquez came to my mind during the course of this thread as well


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## Sheilawisz

Hi everyone, I did not want to post in this thread again but I have decided to do it anyway.

Why is it so incredibly important for you to be _believable_ in what you write? We are, after all, Fantasy writers... This thread has become too focused on the real world where we live and the real species that we are, but this is a Fantasy Writing community and perhaps we should take the thread back in that direction.

If I want to write a freaking story about a world where women are normal height while all men are three feet tall midgets, so women easily push them around all the time, I will write it, and that's all.

That would probably give a heart attack (like Nihal said) to many male readers, but I would not care if that was the type of setting that I wanted to write. I could also invent a species in which females have easy access to some form of adrenaline-fueled super strength while men cannot do it, and so what if some people do not believe it?

Also, I wanted to say this from a realistic point of view: Have you considered that when a person is flooded with adrenaline and grasped by sheer wilderness in the middle of a battlefield, that person is basically a monster? It would not matter much whether the person is a man or a woman, because both have performed incredible feats of strength under those circumstances.

In a fanfiction story that I wrote about Frozen recently, when Princess Anna finds herself in battle she goes wild and fights powerfully just like her soldiers, and so far all my readers have accepted it and nobody said that it was strange or unbelievable.


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## glutton

Queshire said:


> I don't like the implication that the world has to be different for men and women to be equal. Yes, that sentence is an intentional misrepresentation of what you said, but it is ultimately the crux of this debate. Battle is the main form of conflict in our stories so it is the easiest measuring stick between characters. The same problem would come up if the main conflict of the story was cooking, courtroom drama, or a children's card game.
> 
> There's the fact that men are on average stronger than women, and then there's the concept that men and women are equal. I think as writers we should put more weight on the concepts espoused by our works than conforming to facts.



Nobody's saying you have 'conform' to facts and have no woman be close in strength to the strongest man, in my latest novel the female MC is at least 3X stronger than the male MC - who is no wimp, he is a fit young man who knows how to fight and can lift more than 200 lbs over his head, the female MC is just a straight up MONSTER - with no explanation beyond that she grew up outside society fighting monsters to survive. It's just nice to be aware of real life physical differences so you know how far you're straying from the norm and can at least guess how 'unrealistic' some readers will find it. Then if you wish, you can decide to word your blurb in a way as to prepare readers for what they're about to see... eg. whether to call your character 'a skilled female warrior' or 'a walking engine of destruction whose blade is stained with the blood of ten thousand men' lol.

Okay that last one was intentionally over the top but even just describing her as a 'mighty warrior' carries a different connotation than just 'skilled warrior' and can help readers know if it fits with what they like.


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## Penpilot

Trick said:


> When you bring the best of both together, the men win, every time. This is not a flaw in women, it is simply a biological lottery that favors men very heavily. There may be a very rare women who can compete in a professional sport with men but I have never heard of one. And, if you offer evidence of even a few I'll guarantee that they either naturally or unnaturally had male hormone levels.



Here's a video of Jenny Finch Olympic softball pitcher facing off against a minor league pro player.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG8NOR6Lg2c

Here's a video of Manon Rheaume. First woman to play goal in a pre-season NHL exhibition game. Yes it was a publicity stunt, but she faced off against some of the worlds best and acquitted her self well. She never made it to the NHL but she did make it to the IHL which is the minor leagues, one step below the big show. She also went on to the Olympics, winning a gold medal.  

Here's a retrospect on her history making experience.





IMHO, neither of them from my untrained eyes appears to have unusually high levels of male hormones. 



Trick said:


> That is impressive and she could probably beat many/most men. I doubt she could best Bruce Lee or even Jet Li for that matter.



Sorry, just an itch I need to scratch on this. Jet Li is an actor. What he does on screen has more in common with ballet dancing than it does with martial arts.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

Gryphos said:


> You can have a woman be the best fighter in your novel and not even have to explain it.


I agree. You don't owe readers an explanation (which is what I meant by not catering to biases in my tl;dr post). Just entertain, and show what your character can do. If readers are immersed in your story, there shouldn't be a reason to put the book down and say, "Bah! If it was guy, then it would make sense!"

EDIT - A short post this time because I have to go the the Dragon's Egg thread and RP the strongest player character in the group. _She_'s also the tallest.


----------



## Trick

Sheilawisz said:


> If I want to write a freaking story about a world where women are normal height while all men are three feet tall midgets, so women easily push them around all the time, I will write it, and that's all.



That.Would.Be.Awesome!

I didn't quote this part but you later stated that you thought some men wouldn't like/appreciate this, obviously not verbatim. I think it could be great! But this is not really how I was coming at the discussion before. I was specifically speaking about a fantasy world where the men and women appear, on the surface, to be the same as they are on earth. However, you make a good point in saying, that is not necessary in our genre.


----------



## Trick

@Penpilot,

In of the first case you show, the female athlete is not going up against the "best." And she threw from less of a distance - that is not a fair contest. In the second, she was beaten out for a spot in the NHL by men. I said, "When you bring the best of both together, the men win, every time." and that still stands but it honestly only applies to athletic pursuits. In nothing else is this true, and in many cases, the opposite is. 



Penpilot said:


> Sorry, just an itch I need to scratch on this. Jet Li is an actor. What he does on screen has more in common with ballet dancing than it does with martial arts.



Jet Li had fifteen gold medals in Wushu before the age of nineteen. I think that makes him an impressive martial artist. But yes he is also a talented actor.


----------



## Guy

In a fight strength is an advantage, not a guarantee.

Weapons level the playing field a bit.

In the world of my characters, female warriors aren't unusual. They aren't typical, but there are enough of them that no one gives it a second thought. My MC is a world class warrior because the gods said so. Amazons in my world are a species, like elves and dwarves. Durganian Amazons are horse archers, of average to smallish size but of equal strength to human men. Average height for Veranian Amazons is 6 foot six and they're at least 5 times stronger than the average human man. Why? Because it's the fantasy genre and I'm the writer and I said so.


----------



## Legendary Sidekick

An all-female species?

(In case I'm way off, it's a serious question. I've done that with pixies, so the idea isn't so far-fetched to me.)


----------



## Penpilot

Trick said:


> @Penpilot,
> 
> In of the first case you show, the female athlete is not going up against the "best." And she threw from less of a distance - that is not a fair contest. In the second, she was beaten out for a spot in the NHL by men. I said, "When you bring the best of both together, the men win, every time." and that still stands but it honestly only applies to athletic pursuits. In nothing else is this true, and in many cases, the opposite is.



You also said. 



Trick said:


> There may be a very rare women who can compete in a professional sport with men but I have never heard of one.



In the case of Manon Rheaume, she competed at a professional level with men. I never said or implied she dominated, nor was my post intended to address the argument of best on best. You wondered about a woman being able to compete at a professional level. I just gave you one.


----------



## Guy

Legendary Sidekick said:


> An all-female species?
> 
> (In case I'm way off, it's a serious question. I've done that with pixies, so the idea isn't so far-fetched to me.)


No. The men gravitate more towards administrative and scholarly pursuits.

The story I have posted in my portfolio is about one of my Amazons. I explain a bit about their society, culture, etc. in it.


----------



## Sheilawisz

Trick, I am not really going to write a story with a setting like that.

I said that to display my point that we are Fantasy writers after all, and that we should not worry so much about the constant gender issues that have been discussed in this thread and many others. These topics keep generating loads of attention in Mythic Scribes, over and over again, and I cannot understand why.

From my personal point of view, these threads are getting quite annoying. Whenever that it happens, it's all about _women this_ and _women that_ and _women this also_ and everyone talks about this nonstop like we were some alien species or perhaps the greatest attraction in this side of the galaxy.

It's better to just write your characters without thinking so much about all this stuff.


----------



## Trick

Sheilawisz said:


> Trick, I am not really going to write a story with a setting like that.



I didn't really think you were, just that it would be awesome. I don't disagree about this topic having an odd momentum. It wasn't my intention for this to spiral, obviously, but I'm glad I asked my original question. I got the advice I needed... and this just exploded.


----------



## glutton

Sheilawisz said:


> It's better to just write your characters without thinking so much about all this stuff.



It's good to know a little bit about reality so that even if you decide to be unrealistic, you at least have an idea of when you're being unrealistic which also helps with consistency. Otherwise you run the risk of writing stuff like having a character who swings around a 50 lb sword with grace and speed, yet is easily overpowered by a slightly bigger than average normal man XD


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## T.Allen.Smith

I actually appreciate threads like these when they're handled with tact and respect. They offer an opportunity to persuade & learn, even if they are somewhat repetitive. 

I do agree discussions like these are massively weighted toward how writers should include the female gender, but at least we're having that discussion. That tells me thinking is heading in the right direction. But I do see how some may find that annoying and tiresome. 

In the end, Sheila is right (along with other members who said the same). Just write how that one character would act, without concern of gender averages & exceptions. That practice will yield a far more interesting cast.


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## Tom

Penpilot said:


> Jet Li is an actor. What he does on screen has more in common with ballet dancing than it does with martial arts.



Whoo! Obviously you don't know what goes into ballet, then. 

I danced ballet for several years before being sucked in by fencing, and I've found that the strength I developed as a dancer is equal to or greater than the strength needed for fencing. A lot of martial artists and professional sports players (such as American football players) take ballet as part of their training, because it builds up strength, stamina, agility, and coordination. Ballet may look ethereal, but all those airy, delicate-looking moves take a lot of strength to perform. (I should know--I pulled a muscle while dancing a sequence because I just wasn't physically up for it yet.)

Take a look at this dancer's muscles, if you don't believe me:








I know I'm taking this out of context, but I think your analogy was flawed. Ballet is just as demanding a sport as martial arts, and people who do it just as strong.


----------



## Steerpike

There have been NFL football players who trained with ballet and said it was important to their success in football. 

Can Ballet Lessons Improve Your Football Skills? | Healthy Living - azcentral.com


----------



## Penpilot

Tom Nimenai said:


> Whoo! Obviously you don't know what goes into ballet, then.
> 
> I know I'm taking this out of context, but I think your analogy was flawed. Ballet is just as demanding a sport as martial arts, and people who do it just as strong.



I think you're misunderstanding my analogy. It's not about athletic ability, because lifting another human above your head while standing on your toes takes tremendous strength, agility, etc.

The statement was made that a woman couldn't even beat Jet Li, an actor, in a martial arts fight. I compared what he does in the movies to ballet. Ballet doesn't involve slamming people to the mat or punches to the face, not intentional any way. The same can be said for movie martial arts. Ballet and movie martial arts take athletic ability and are both putting on a show. 

So tell me where that analogy is wrong.

Also think about the initial statement. It implies a female martial artist at the top of her game doesn't stand a chance against a 50 year old actor, who hasn't fought competitively in over 30 years.


----------



## glutton

Penpilot said:


> Also think about the initial statement. It implies a female martial artist at the top of her game doesn't stand a chance against a 50 year old actor, who hasn't fought competitively in over 30 years.



Jet could probably lose to a number of female fighters, not sure about the particular one in question, but if we were talking about his Expendables co-star Dolph who's also in his 50's and hasn't fought in a long time... I'd be hesitant to pick most against him. Women like Lana Stefanac and Gabi Garcia might beat Dolph though, look them up.

Stats lol.

Also this post was brought to you by the mention of Ronda and Jet Li in the same thread making me think of Expendables.


----------



## Tom

Penpilot said:


> I think you're misunderstanding my analogy. It's not about athletic ability, because lifting another human above your head while standing on your toes takes tremendous strength, agility, etc.
> 
> The statement was made that a woman couldn't even beat Jet Li, an actor, in a martial arts fight. I compared what he does in the movies to ballet. Ballet doesn't involve slamming people to the mat or punches to the face, not intentional any way. The same can be said for movie martial arts. Ballet and movie martial arts take athletic ability and are both putting on a show.
> 
> So tell me where that analogy is wrong.
> 
> Also think about the initial statement. It implies a female martial artist at the top of her game doesn't stand a chance against a 50 year old actor, who hasn't fought competitively in over 30 years.



Yeah, I see your point now. And I agree, a female martial artist could stand a chance at taking down Jet Li.

At the time I made the post, I was under the impression that you were saying that ballet shouldn't be taken seriously as a sport. And yes, as I said earlier, it is a sport. Ballet is built on the same key principals as many martial arts: strength, stamina, flexibility, etc. It may be practiced mostly for entertainment, but tell any dancer that ballet is not a sport and they'll take offense. 

Plus, a lot of ballet moves can (surprisingly) be turned into fighting moves. A spin with a kick-out can be modified into a roundhouse pretty easily. In fencing, a _gran jete_ from ballet can be turned into a _balaestra_, a forceful jump-kick motion that both sets up an attack and flusters your opponent. 

Sorry I took this so seriously, but I really felt I needed to clear up some misconceptions about ballet.


----------



## Trick

Penpilot said:


> The statement was made that a woman couldn't even beat Jet Li, an actor, in a martial arts fight. I compared what he does in the movies to ballet. Ballet doesn't involve slamming people to the mat or punches to the face, not intentional any way. The same can be said for movie martial arts. Ballet and movie martial arts take athletic ability and are both putting on a show.
> 
> So tell me where that analogy is wrong.
> 
> Also think about the initial statement. It implies a female martial artist at the top of her game doesn't stand a chance against a 50 year old actor, who hasn't fought competitively in over 30 years.



The original statement was:



> That is impressive and she could probably beat many/most men. I doubt she could best Bruce Lee or even Jet Li for that matter. My own point, for what it's worth (about $0.02), is not that women cannot achieve athletic greatness but that the highest level of athletic greatness is dominated by men.



I didn't say she couldn't beat Jet Li now, though I didn't differentiate either. Take her, as you say, at the top of her game, and put her against Bruce Lee at the top of his game (no contest in my opinion, even for the best male martial artists in their prime) or Jet Li at the top of his game (fifteen time gold medalist in Wushu), who retired from competition at nineteen which means he was likely in prime condition for the next 10 to 15 years if not longer. I would bet on him, in that condition, against any female martial artist. I'd bet on him now against most people, in fact. I just know a martial artist in their prime is an especially dangerous opponent and do take it into consideration. 

I would also like to point out, if Jet Li or someone of similar skill were to fight, say, a huge Viking while they were going berserk, I'd bet on the Viking. If the Viking were a woman or a man, that kind of pain tolerance and size disparity makes quite the advantage.


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## glutton

I have no idea who would win between Jet and that woman but the thing I would like to point is wushu is pretty well known to be more about showing off forms than actual fighting, thus it's hard to gauge how good Jet Li is/was in a fight based on being a wushu champion. However I don't know how proficient in practical fighting skills the woman in the clip is either since that is not really a move you would see in a real fight, so maybe he would destroy her who knows. I do suspect Rowdy Ronda Rousey would easily beat Jet now or in his youth because she is a proven competitive fighter with monstrous functional strength for a woman and at least as big as him.



Trick said:


> I would also like to point out, if Jet Li or someone of similar skill were to fight, say, a huge Viking while they were going berserk, I'd bet on the Viking. If the Viking were a woman or a man, that kind of pain tolerance and size disparity makes quite the advantage.



Yessir, I feel it is so.


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## Trick

glutton said:


> I have no idea who would win between Jet and that woman but the thing I would like to point is wushu is pretty well known to be more about showing off forms than actual fighting, thus it's hard to gauge how good Jet Li is/was in a fight based on being a wushu champion. However I don't know how proficient in practical fighting skills the woman in the clip is either since that is not really a move you would see in a real fight, so maybe he would destroy her who knows. I do suspect Rowdy Ronda Rousey would easily beat Jet now or in his youth because she is a proven competitive fighter with monstrous functional strength for a woman and at least as big as him.
> 
> 
> 
> Yessir, I feel it is so.



If it were Bruce Lee, and only him, I might bet on him against someone like that. He was probably the closest thing to a superhuman martial artist that ever truly existed but otherwise... a huge seasoned warrior of any kind is definitely going to have a major advantage over a small martial artist for the same reason an average guy has an advantage against an average woman. It only takes one mistake to lose to a bigger, stronger opponent. I know from experience, I'm thin and I've got a brother who is, or at least was, literally twice my size. I'm faster but he can actually throw me; that changes the whole dynamic of a fight. Once you add skills to balance these things, you're betting on an entirely different contest though.


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## glutton

Trick said:


> Once you add skills to balance these things, you're betting on an entirely different contest though.



Yes but it's not as if a large fighter cannot have skills... Dolph and Randy Couture, another Expendables cast members, would be good examples of size plus skill - although Randy is not HUGE, about 6' and 220 lbs in his prime, but he was a heavyweight.

The quest to turn this into the Expendables thread continues...


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## Trick

glutton said:


> Yes but it's not as if a large fighter cannot have skills... Dolph and Randy Couture, another Expendables cast members, would be good examples of size plus skill - although Randy is not HUGE, about 6' and 220 lbs in his prime, but he was a heavyweight.
> 
> The quest to turn this into the Expendables thread continues...



No disagreement but I think this is more a question of agility, which is not the same as speed. No big man will move as fast as a compact martial artist. If he gets one good hit in however...

I told this story earlier in this thread but I'll copy it here (for effect of course):



> A friend of my family was security at a hockey game. He watched a little guy (5'6" maybe 120lbs) pick a fight with a big guy (over 6', 250 lbs or so). A lot of shoving took place and then abruptly ended when the big man punched the small man once and killed him. He didn't mean to and cried in the office while he waited for the police. The little guy was definitely faster but how much did that really matter?


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## Valentinator

Elite fighters deserve to be compared to elite fighters. I raise you Cain Velasquez.






Height	6 ft 1 in (185 cm)[1]
Weight	241 lb (109 kg; 17 st 3 lb)
Division	Heavyweight
Reach	77 in (196 cm)

I wouldn't say he's slower than Ronda Rousey.


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## glutton

Can't resist replying to this anymore... Trick wasn't talking about pure speed, but agility which smaller people do tend to have more of than larger ones - if you watch a Ronda Rousey highlight, you'll see she uses more fancy-looking 'would fit an agile/speedy fictional character' throws/takedowns/transitions than Cain does in that video. This isn't really a male vs female issue, but more of a big vs small issue - Ronda isn't even the best example to pit against Cain in this case as she cuts weight from around 160 lbs and is one of the larger female fighters, if you compared the 115 lb women or 125 lb men to the heavyweights, then difference between smaller and larger people would be pretty noticeable.

This isn't to say big people are necessarily less skilled, just their body type limits their ability to pull off flashy agile moves. Effectiveness is what matters most in the end, so a larger fighter who is more consistent than all others would definitely get my vote for 'best' in terms of skill...


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## Valentinator

glutton said:


> Can't resist replying to this anymore... Trick wasn't talking about pure speed, but agility which smaller people do tend to have more of than larger ones - if you watch a Ronda Rousey highlight, you'll see she uses more fancy-looking 'would fit an agile/speedy fictional character' throws/takedowns/transitions than Cain does in that video. This isn't really a male vs female issue, but more of a big vs small issue - Ronda isn't even the best example to pit against Cain in this case as she cuts weight from around 160 lbs and is one of the larger female fighters, if you compared the 115 lb women or 125 lb men to the heavyweights, then difference between smaller and larger people would be pretty noticeable.
> 
> This isn't to say big people are necessarily less skilled, just their body type limits their ability to pull off flashy agile moves. Effectiveness is what matters most in the end, so a larger fighter who is more consistent than all others would definitely get my vote for 'best' in terms of skill...



I agree that big people are generally less agile, but to win a fight you should either have superior skill (like agility) or ability to counter that skill. I'm sure Cain can counter agile guys with his other tools. There are certain tricks against speedsters and the best fighters usually know them all.  

If you want to see really fast and agile heavyweights, check out Fedor Emelianenko. His agility is incredible, he pulls crazy moves all the time. And, I have to say that, he is waaay faster than Ronda.


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## glutton

Valentinator said:


> I agree that big people are generally less agile, but to win a fight you should either have superior skill (like agility) or ability to counter that skill. I'm sure Cain can counter agile guys with his other tools. There are certain tricks against speedsters and the best fighters usually know them all.



Yes, skilled big fighters would be favored to win over similarly skilled smaller fighters hence why there are weight classes in combat sports as size/strength tends to outweigh an advantage in agility, I was just commenting purely on agility on its own. And yeah there are exceptions like Fedor but as a general rule the higher the weight class the less you see flashy agile movie-looking stuff. The guillotine counter Cain does at the end of his highlight that TKOs JDS is nice though.


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## Legendary Sidekick

I feel like we're looking at two facts, but I'm not entirely sure what conversation they're meant to support. For me, I'm interested in how these facts affect me as a writer...



*1. Fact:* the top male fighter/weightlifter/runner can outperform the top female fighter/weightlifter/runner.

(This is not to say men are the best at every sport. I haven't had any luck verifying this, but I imagine there are some gymnastic/acrobatic feats in which the record holder is a petite woman.)



Spoiler: a time I "lost" to two girls



I do have one experience in which girls score an athletic victory. My karate class held a kick-a-thon for charity. We had to throw as many kicks as we could in half an hour.

I was #5 at 1346 kicks. #4 kicked 1352 times. Bah, I coulda had 4th if not for that fancy flying scissors kick combo I did at 999 & 1000!

Anyway, #2 and #3 were the girls with kicks numbering in the 1500s. #1 was a guy from Thailand with 1700 kicks, but he had been a martial artist since the age of three. He was dead tired at the end. The girls didn't seem to break a sweat. I can tell you my leg felt liks a 200 pound weight after 20 minutes, and in well into the 1200s, a couple of my kicks were too low to be counted. The two girls and I were yellow belts who started training at the same time, and we were all the same age, ~19-20. I was the only participant over 200 pounds, so I felt pretty good that I beat 1000 kicks, which was the goal given by the teacher.

But training and physical condition being equal for one's gender and body frame, no excuses about relative size... the girls won the day. The only guy who beat them had been training his whole life.



That said, kick-a-thons aren't common, so I don't know if this experience works as an exception to what fact #1 implies. It is an example of fact #2, below, if you narrow the group down to just the yellow belts or even those with less than ten years of training.



*2. Fact:* there are groups (a martial arts class, characters in a story, ten random people, Dragon's Egg PCs) in which a woman is the strongest athlete and/or the best fighter.

(It's more common for a male to be strongest in a given group, but groups in which a female is the strongest do exist in both real life and existing works fiction.)




*The Question:* What do these facts mean to me as a writer?

Fact #1 tells me it's likely that readers won't expect a woman to be the strongest in a given group.
Fact #2 tells me that a woman can be the strongest in a given group.



What do I do with these facts? Same as I would with any fact or anything I feel the need to research: know the facts, understand them, and make a decision on how important these facts are to me as a writer.



Spoiler: specifics about my strongest fantasy character



My 6'9" barbarian princess is an anomaly. She is extremely strong, but her mother brought her up to be what the world sees as "ladylike." Her body makes it hard for the world to accept her as ladylike.

I see the "what makes her a woman" side of her personality to be a mix of societal and biological, but I don't feel the need to explain myself now or when I get to writing this character's story, which I'm putting aside until my standalone WIP is finished.

However, I've been playing this character in Dragon's Egg, and I love how her look elicits reactions and assumptions from other characters. So there are not only reader expectations but expectations that other characters have of this woman, in part because of her gender and her physical build which puts "manly men" to shame.

When I finally get to writing her, I'll have had the RPG experience depicting reactions to this large, powerful, deadly female fighter--reactions that are appropriate according to other MS members who are talented writers and/or artists!


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## glutton

Legendary Sidekick said:


> *2. Fact:* there are groups (a martial arts class, characters in a story, ten random people, Dragon's Egg PCs) in which a woman is the strongest athlete and/or the best fighter.



This is certainly true, I suppose for me personally the upper human limits in a setting have more significance than for most since the group my female main characters are most relevantly compared to is usually... the top tier warriors in their world. Almost every book I've written has the female lead as a super elite fighter who often battles multiple other elite fighters over the course of the story, it's just a specialty of mine lol.


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## Steerpike

I think it is important to realize that while you could write a story taking place in the real world with an elite female fighter, you arguably have even greater freedom to do it in a fantasy world, and you don't have to use hand-waving or explanations to explain how a female warrior could be the best. The suggestion was made somewhere in the thread that if you have a female character like that you have to go through all kinds of literary contortions to explain how it is she can be so good, and that's nonsense in my view. Just make her the best, if that's how you see the story. The vast majority of readers will be right there with you if you've done your job as an author, and the ones who get hung up on that aspect of the story should be ignored in favor of following your vision.


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## Trick

Steerpike said:


> The suggestion was made somewhere in the thread that if you have a female character like that you have to go through all kinds of literary contortions to explain how it is she can be so good



Where was that said? I can't seem to find that...


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## Steerpike

Trick said:


> Where was that said? I can't seem to find that...



For example:

http://mythicscribes.com/forums/wri...-female-characters-post185036.html#post185036


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## Trick

Steerpike said:


> For example:
> 
> http://mythicscribes.com/forums/wri...-female-characters-post185036.html#post185036



Thanks. Seems like a lot of the hang up here is in trying to stay completely accurate (through a lense, of course) to real world averages. Knowing the stats is one thing. Not making the same stats present in a fantasy world is our prerogative as writers. 

For myself, I like well placed backstory for every important character, giving insights into their special attributes. I get much more immersed that way and there's no reason to do that more so for female characters than male. Pay as much attention to each character as is dictated by their importance to the plot, I think.


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## Mythopoet

Trick said:


> Thanks. Seems like a lot of the hang up here is in trying to stay completely accurate (through a lense, of course) to real world averages. Knowing the stats is one thing. Not making the same stats present in a fantasy world is our prerogative as writers.



But making the stats present in a fantasy world is also a writer's prerogative. (Personally, I don't, because no one in my fantasy world is what you would call human.) But I do think it's every writer's right to make their fantasy worlds as unrealistic or realistic (by which I mean, similar to our reality) as they personally want to. It's every writer's right to decide what they personally find to be believable and design their fantasy worlds to their own personal preferences.


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## Svrtnsse

But what if the dragon is a girl too? Shouldn't she be capturing a prince then?


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## Trick

Mythopoet said:


> But making the stats present in a fantasy world is also a writer's prerogative. (Personally, I don't, because no one in my fantasy world is what you would call human.) But I do think it's every writer's right to make their fantasy worlds as unrealistic or realistic (by which I mean, similar to our reality) as they personally want to. It's every writer's right to decide what they personally find to be believable and design their fantasy worlds to their own personal preferences.



That's what I'm saying. I was coming at it from the idea that real world stats are the default and that we can stray from them all we want in the fantasy genre. So... agreed.


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## Trick

Svrtnsse said:


> But what if the dragon is a girl too? Shouldn't she be capturing a prince then?



I think in that case the dragon should capture a donkey that sounds like Eddie Murphy... I'm sure that's never been done.


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## glutton

Total badass. Dat shield...


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## Valentinator

Let me rephrase my old post. I guess it sounded too harsh. I don't want to say that female-best warriors are not working at all. Of course it works, it's an awesome trope. I just want to say that some explanations of fighting superiority may be helpful sometimes for both genders. For example, Brienne of Tarth is a very realistic, believable character.  Can she be the toughest warrior? Absolutely. But I want to point out that GRRM did extensive amount of explanation why it works. He didn't characterize her like she's a male knight. I see no problem with that and I don't think it is insulting for characters like Brienne or women in general. 

My conclusion is if you can pull out believable female-berserkers without providing any specific background information, than just go for it. If you can't, maybe it's better to do a little bit of world-building.


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## Guy

Steerpike said:


> I think it is important to realize that while you could write a story taking place in the real world with an elite female fighter, you arguably have even greater freedom to do it in a fantasy world, and you don't have to use hand-waving or explanations to explain how a female warrior could be the best. The suggestion was made somewhere in the thread that if you have a female character like that you have to go through all kinds of literary contortions to explain how it is she can be so good, and that's nonsense in my view. Just make her the best, if that's how you see the story. The vast majority of readers will be right there with you if you've done your job as an author, and the ones who get hung up on that aspect of the story should be ignored in favor of following your vision.


That's the approach I took.


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## Steerpike

I suppose the extent to which a writer might feel compelled to explain things may be influenced by how common an elite female fighter is in that world. If a character is the only female who is able to fight on that level, a reader may wonder how she came to occupy that position. But if elite female fighters are common, then the reader will be more likely to accept it as simply a fact of the fantasy world and not require an explanation.


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## glutton

Steerpike said:


> I suppose the extent to which a writer might feel compelled to explain things may be influenced by how common an elite female fighter is in that world. If a character is the only female who is able to fight on that level, a reader may wonder how she came to occupy that position. But if elite female fighters are common, then the reader will be more likely to accept it as simply a fact of the fantasy world and not require an explanation.



For most of my worlds they are not 'common' but there is often more than one; and as well, it's not like a huge number of male elite fighters is shown per book either.

In the Iron Flower series, the top 5 warriors in her nation are 2 female, 3 male

In Lost from Legend, the top 4 good guy warriors are 2 female, 2 male

In The Red Rider, the top 5 human warriors shown are 3 female, 2 male

In Blood of Kings, the top 5 warriors are 1 female, 4 male... but that is a take on Arthurian legend so...

In Saving Fate, the top 5 warriors shown are 2 female, 3 male... in this one there may be a significant gap between number 1 (male) and all others though

In Raiders of the Dry Coast, the top 5 warriors shown are 2 female, 3 male

In Tales of the Gothic Warrior, the number 1 established MMA fighter in the world (where open weight and open gender matches are allowed) is female and gets fought to a draw by the titular heroine

Hmm I guess there is a pattern XD


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## Legendary Sidekick

glutton said:


> Total badass. Dat shield...


I see your shield and I raise you…

TWO shields!


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## glutton

I like the dark knight-looking guy wielding a shovel.


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## Legendary Sidekick

Shovel Knight! He's like Ye Olde Mega Man, taking on Propeller Knight, Tinker Knight, Polar Knight and such. Shield Knight is a friend. I believe she teams up with you at the end of the game, blocking stuff, I imagine. (My brother has the game; I don't.)


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## Tom

Have you guys seen the Tumblr Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor? It's chock full of badass lady warriors, great fantasy armor, and stunning artwork.


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## Legendary Sidekick

I checked out a video of the end boss in Shovel Knight. Shield Knight is actually pretty awesome as a strong woman character. What's funny is it's not that serious of a game, but the story is solid.

Also, I was just on DA and someone replied to a comment I made months ago. Apparently, I have this view on keeping feminism feminine. _(Original comment below.)_ That is, I might depict a strong woman differently than I would a strong man, but more along the lines of visuals, personality and all that. I think Nebezial's depiction of She-Ra, entitled "she-ra.....WILL KICK YOUR ASS!!!!!", fits in with my line of thinking regarding what is physically possible in fantasy. Y'know… for a girl.


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## glutton

She-Ra has nice muscles, I approve.


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