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!

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[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?

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[Trick]

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).

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.

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?

 

[Gryphos]

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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

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

^Well said.

 

[Steerpike]

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

 

[Trick]

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.

 

[Svrtnsse]

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.

 

[Steerpike]

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.

 

[Mythopoet]

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.

 

[Steerpike]

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.

 

[Gryphos]

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.

 

[Steerpike]

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.

 

[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.)

 

[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.