Strong female characters

[yibala2]

Seems like a more interesting question from the OP would have been:

What is a Strong Female Character? What makes them that way?

Posters here are working with a few different definitions. Often unspoken and undiscussed definitions.

-Is Strong something more than being smart and good at stuff?

-Does Strong imply three dimensional depth and/or capacity to develop?

-Does Strong have anything to do with being independent of male characters?

It's more important to me that my female characters feel real and/or relatable than that they be Strong (however defined). And I think the Bechdel test remains a good rule of thumb, at least as a starting place, for determining whether creators are representing women well in their work.

Yib

My stories

 

[AlinaX]

-Is Strong something more than being smart and good at stuff?

Well, a central character needs distinctive characteristics, and heroic characters are usually victorious out of sheer determination, even if they lack special gifts. Take Smilla Jasperson: she knows everything there is to know about snow, but it's her sheer bloody minded determination that takes her to the end.

-Does Strong imply three dimensional depth and/or capacity to develop?

Well, of course.

-Does Strong have anything to do with being independent of male characters?

That misses the point. A lot of (female) heroines almost settle for being the one true love of a superior (male) hero, which I find deeply unsatisfying.

But it's not clear cut. Is Elizabeth Bennet a strong female character? Even though Mr D'Arcy saves her family in the end? I would say yes.

 

[ruddygore]

I see a strong female character as one who coes stuff instead of having stuff done to her. A good example on this site were a lot of the females in Etaski's "Surfacing" series, now sadly removed from the site.

In regular SF in think Gretchen Richter in Eric Flint's 1632 series, or Honor Harrington, Elizabeth Winton, and Eloise Prichard in Dave Weber's Honorverse. All of them, to a degree are forcing the action and making people react to what they do.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Rotten Teeth that makes a great visual, and so hard to overcome.

That might be a more persuasive argument if these fictional depictions of rape actually were about "overcoming" it, but IME that's almost never how it's used in stories like GoT.

Mostly, they use rape to establish that the setting is violent and dangerous, or to establish that the male character is a villain, or to give a male character something to get angry about.

I recall one fantasy novel from a few years back where, after using "you might get raped by bandits" for most of the book as a Crapsack World establishing device, one of the female characters does in fact get raped by bandits.

Does the book then explore her emotional reaction and recovery from this traumatic event? Ha ha no. Instead, the male hero massacres the bandits in revenge and is overcome by angst about this violence, and then she gets to help him overcome his trauma at the thought of having killed the bandits. The only lasting effect of her rape is a bit of "well, I guess it was silly of me to be so hung up on holding onto my virginity, guess there's no reason I shouldn't fuck MaleHero now!"

(It made no sense for bandits to even exist in this setting, but bandits are a staple of Extruded Fantasy Product.)

Rape has a visceral reaction and creates strong emotion.

...which is exactly why it's beloved of hack writers who don't have the imagination or the talent to evoke a reader reaction by other means. Like a chef smothering the food in hot sauce to disguise the poor quality of the meat, or the teenager going straight for his girlfriend's clitoris because it's the only thing he knows about arousing a woman.

There are plenty of ways to create strong emotion. Write two people who are both good and who love one another, but are temperamentally incompatible! Somebody who has to choose between the love of their life and the cause they're committed to! Get inside the head of a character who really, really loves Baroque music or graph theory or molluscs and make the reader empathise with that passion!

But all of those things require more skill than just writing rape rape rape.

Even for lazy hacks, though, there are so many other buttons that can be used to create strong emotion on the cheap. Writing about a guy getting his balls torn off by farm equipment, I'm pretty sure that would create a "visceral reaction" and "strong emotion"... yet ~somehow~ that doesn't seem to be nearly as popular as rape.

I wonder why? (not actually a question)

BEsides do you really want to see someone having diarrhea when you watch TV?

About as much as I want to see yet another scene exploiting rape for cheap thrills.

 

[SimonDoom]

What is a Strong Female Character? What makes them that way?


My stories

A strong female character doesn't have super powers, and she isn't somebody who beats men in a sword fight. She might do that, but that's not what makes her strong.

A strong female character is a character that has admirable personal traits, and through the exercise of those traits moves events and creates positive change within a story. She probably learns something herself in the course of the story, and at the end is stronger and more whole than she was at the beginning.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I agree with you.

I thought the Rey character had great promise, and I liked Daisy Ridley. I thought there was a tremendous opportunity to do something interesting. But in the end her character never really seemed true to me. Did she ever smile? Have a moment of levity? Was there anything at all about her that was interesting? She was a character who just happened to be strong with the force, but I never found her character, ultimately, to be that interesting.

Why, yes, Rey does smile, quite a bit.

Now do Boba Fett.

(Also: https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/10/what-its-like-when-a-coworker-tells-you-to-smile/505493/ )

 

[BrokenSpokes]

Okay

I thought the Rey character had great promise, and I liked Daisy Ridley. I thought there was a tremendous opportunity to do something interesting. But in the end her character never really seemed true to me. Did she ever smile?

There is nothing, NOTHING, that says you are down with strong female characters more than telling them they need to smile more. *Insert Eye-Roll*

She was a freakin’ orphan, scraping out a meager existence on a back-water planet when she was thrown into a fight against the galaxy’s supposedly most powerful and evil emo-Darth Vader. What did she have to smile about?

Honest to god, the BEST fucking part of the pandemic is that wearing a mask everywhere has meant men have stopped telling me to smile.

 

[NotWise]

Does it seem to you that most of the "strong female characters" you guys want to discuss are from Sci Fi and Fantasy? Who's going to throw in a few in from video games?

I've not responded on this thread because it's really hard to define what a strong female character is, but I just have to say something, because y'all want to identifying them as fantasy characters. I tend to identify them with my wife, and with other women I've known who have gotten things done.

There have to be a lot of ways to define a strong female character, but to me it means that she sets her own goals and finds ways to meet them. That doesn't mean that she doesn't help other people meet their goals, but they don't define her goals.

A strong character can also use any means available to get to her goal. She just has to get it.

No character -- no person -- can be defined without reference to a social setting. There's no possibility that a strong woman would be somehow independent of a man, or another woman. Our relationships define us. Even the "alpha" characters, who can be male or female, can only be defined in reference to their social setting.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Maj. Margaret Houlihan. Strong, dominant, in command when necessary, but could also be softer, more feminine and even vulnerable.

Best post in the thread.


I look at most of the examples, and if you gender switched the characters, all that would change is their pronouns.

 

[Thefireflies]

Yeah, but it's fucking tedious how often writers pick rape for that particular "horrible experience". It's become a lazy writer's button to mash whenever he wants to establish the grimdarkness of a Crapsack World.

There are interesting discussions here. One thing I wondered from this: is rape a legitimate plot device in any story? Especially given the prevalence of sexual assault towards women in society.

In the context of the discussion in this thread about strong female characters, I suspect the use of rape of a female character in some stories might be used as a plot device where the underlying implication is that the woman’s strength is derived from the experience of being raped, suggesting it was important or necessary for her to grow. Which of course it wasn’t necessary and no one should have to experience such a thing.

I had a think about this, because I wrote a story for the One Night in XXX event last year, an historical fiction set among convicts of the First Fleet sent to Australia, where I chose to write from the perspective of a female convict in a very brutal male-dominated world. No character gets raped in the story, but there is an explicit fear of rape by sailors and other convicts, and female convicts used their sexuality as a means to survive among sailors, marines and other convicts. I wrote it this way because, going by accounts of history books, these things were true, and I wanted the story to reflect that. Was I guilty of using the threat of rape as an unnecessary plot device, or simply using what was known about those times to tell a story? I felt the need to add a note on the historical context at the end of the story, to somewhat justify all events I’d written. And like I said, no rapes took place in the story.

There is a movie from 2018 called the Nightingale, by Jennifer Kent, who also made The Babadook. Like my One Night story, Nightingale is also set in convict times and includes several brutal rapes of the main protagonist, whose family is then murdered, setting her on the path of revenge. The movie is uncompromisingly brutal, and while the protagonist is no shrinking violet to begin with, there is no suggestion whatsoever she grown in a positive sense from the experience. In fact, by the end of the film she has changed in other unexpected ways.

I use this example because it was an uncomfortable but somewhat compelling narrative. It told a story in a real-life setting where there were no winners, no glory, but the female protagonist was indeed a strong one. But was it necessary to tell her story in such a violent manner? Perhaps, perhaps not. Murder and other experiences death and all forms of violence are used all the time for entertainment purposes and are often discussed by many. However, I do think that with the levels sexual assault and violence in society, particularly towards women, perhaps there needs to be more trigger warnings on such content so people can choose if they wish to avoid these stories.

 

[Bramblethorn]

There are interesting discussions here. One thing I wondered from this: is rape a legitimate plot device in any story? Especially given the prevalence of sexual assault towards women in society.

It certainly can be. My objection here is not to stories that actually have something to say about rape, but to stories that use it casually for ambience or merely as a plot device to enable somebody else's character development.

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

Watch out for the bear traps. You are implying, then, that audiences do want to see women be raped, or that the only audience that matters is the one that can lowkey fantasize the rape as a good thing (ie, men).

Death is death. Loss is loss.

Not at all. I'm saying that people have a strong emotional reaction to rape. This is why it's used. It gets the audience emotionally involved. Either rooting for the rapist to get punished or the woman to overcome the trauma.

 

[Thefireflies]

Does it seem to you that most of the "strong female characters" you guys want to discuss are from Sci Fi and Fantasy? Who's going to throw in a few in from video games?

Sure, why not…straight up I can think of Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, and Ellie from The Last of Us.

A quick addition - Sadie from Red Dead Redemption 2

 

[ChloeTzang]

A strong female character doesn't have super powers, and she isn't somebody who beats men in a sword fight. She might do that, but that's not what makes her strong.

A strong female character is a character that has admirable personal traits, and through the exercise of those traits moves events and creates positive change within a story. She probably learns something herself in the course of the story, and at the end is stronger and more whole than she was at the beginning.

Yes, and I’ll throw in Georgette Heyer’s regency romances as books with consistently strong female characters.

 

[SisterJezabel]

But it's not clear cut. Is Elizabeth Bennet a strong female character? Even though Mr D'Arcy saves her family in the end? I would say yes.

She is strong because she refuses his offer when he first proposes because she does not believe herself in love with him, and he is a dick about it all. It would have been expected of her to accept his hand because it would save her family. Her family was already saved because of Jane and Bingley's betrothal. Lady Catherine's claim Lizzie is an "Obstinate, headstrong girl," really cements lizzie's strength as no one usually talks to Lady Catherine like that! If you compare Lizzie to her sisters, her mother, Lady Catherine, Bingley's sisters, Lady Georgiana and her good friend, Charlotte or any of the other female characters, Lizzie is definitely strong.

 

[SimonDoom]

But it's not clear cut. Is Elizabeth Bennet a strong female character? Even though Mr D'Arcy saves her family in the end? I would say yes.

Yes. Elizabeth Bennet is an excellent example of a strong female character.

She is highly intelligent, witty, observant, and ethical. She is generous, and thinks of the welfare of other people. Throughout the novel she tries to do right. Her sense of right is obscured by her "pride and prejudice", and the novel chronicles how she overcomes those flaws.

She lives in a world that places women at a huge disadvantage, and she does what she can to navigate her way intelligently and ethically through that world. I think she's an outstanding example of a strong female literary character.

 

[NotWise]

I should never have raised my voice.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Often 'strong female character' means 'the author has bothered to flesh out a realistic female character just as they do for male characters'. So shows or stories where all the characters are stereotypes don't have strong male or female characters (eg Friends). Films where you have the Male Protagonist who Does Plot Stuff, with the Girl only as eye candy to get together with Our Protagonist are slowly evolving into having more strong female characters - eg Bond films having Bong Girls and Moneypenny with glimmerings of strength but no time given to allow them to develop, to the more ensemble recent films where you've had strong Moneypenny and female M as well as Swann and Vesper as love interests.

Soaps and now dramas seem to do better at female characters than comedy on TV. If people want female villains then Alexis Colby could be a model?

SF again, but The Expanse has a range of strong characters including female ones, ditto Farscape. Or the West Wing - Abby and Joey Lucas and CJ were all strong characters, Donna possibly.

 

[Brutal_One]

Seems like a more interesting question from the OP would have been:

What is a Strong Female Character? What makes them that way?

Posters here are working with a few different definitions. Often unspoken and undiscussed definitions.

-Is Strong something more than being smart and good at stuff?

-Does Strong imply three dimensional depth and/or capacity to develop?

-Does Strong have anything to do with being independent of male characters?

It's more important to me that my female characters feel real and/or relatable than that they be Strong (however defined). And I think the Bechdel test remains a good rule of thumb, at least as a starting place, for determining whether creators are representing women well in their work.

Yib

My stories

I guess another way to look at it is to remove gender specific (though of course in the OP that where my thinking started). So yes what in general makes a strong character and in this respect the adjective strong of course is nothing to do with physical strength but strength of character in basically being believable, capable and can demonstrate courage, tenacity, imagination but also be human, insecure, vulnerable without being weak. If you will forgive the expression ‘having character’. There is maybe one overall theme and that is that females in general can have great ‘strength of character’ in general. They tend to be ‘stronger’ than men when it comes to bearing life challenges. Those are the kinds of female characters I would like to see written.

Brutal One

 

[Emirus]

If people want female villains then Alexis Colby could be a model?.

If you’re looking for a woman who is evil, wicked and totally without a conscience, but can snare a man with a snap of her fingers, then Alexis Colby has to be high on the list. The definition of a strong woman without physical strength ever coming into it. Joan Collins brought her to life better than any words could do.

As other people are plugging their stories I’ll join the queue.

https://www.literotica.com/s/dynasty-the-true-story-really

If looking for an example of some people not reading a disclaimer this is a good example. Despite me explaining I know mobile phones, as we know them, didn’t exist at the time but I needed one for the story there was a comment left by someone, who obviously had gone straight to the beginning of the story, ripping into me about mobile phones not being around at that time. How many people don’t read the disclaimers and then, as he/she did, hammer you for it?

 

[yibala2]

Does it seem to you that most of the "strong female characters" you guys want to discuss are from Sci Fi and Fantasy?

Actually there is very good reason for this. Speculative fiction has a long history of feminist writing, and an embracing of the idea that women can do and feel things that were traditionally considered to be in the male sphere. So it isn't surprising that that kind of writing in the 60's and 70's gave rise to films and TV in the 80's and later like Aliens, Farscape, and the Expanse and other shows that have been mentioned in this thread - all of which had strong female characters, or women in heroic roles traditionally reserved for men.

Mad Max:Fury Road is remarkably similar to a feminist sf story by Suzee McKee Charnas called the Furies, and the series of books that story was part of. She started that series in the 1970's.

Yib

 

[WoodmanStark]

There is maybe one overall theme and that is that females in general can have great ‘strength of character’ in general. They tend to be ‘stronger’ than men when it comes to bearing life challenges.

"But females are strong as hell."
the guy in the opening to Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

 

[SimonDoom]

Those are the kinds of female characters I would like to see written.

Brutal One

What does that mean in the context of erotica? Is there a type of strong female character you want to see written more often in erotic stories that currently is not being written at Literotica?

 

[RetroFan]

With any character, male or female, young or old if you want to give them a certain attribute then you need to demonstrate why they have that attribute.

For example, say I wrote a first person story set in the late 1950s about a shy and square girl who has sex for the first time with her male cousin who is really, really cool. If the cousin is cool, then I have to show the readers why he is cool. If I just have the female narrator and other characters describing the cousin as cool but don't show the readers why other characters think he is cool by actions, then I haven't done a good job.

 

[WoodmanStark]

With any character, male or female, young or old if you want to give them a certain attribute then you need to demonstrate why they have that attribute.

For example, say I wrote a first person story set in the late 1950s about a shy and square girl who has sex for the first time with her male cousin who is really, really cool. If the cousin is cool, then I have to show the readers why he is cool. If I just have the female narrator and other characters describing the cousin as cool but don't show the readers why other characters think he is cool by actions, then I haven't done a good job.

That was my great failure in my story "Jennifer" as pointed out by Awkward MD. I've since been rewriting that story.