Luckily women in the writing profession don’t face the same endemic problems as those trying to rise to the “C” level of corporations (CEO, COO, CTO, etc.). But I began to think about how this might affect female characters in the stories I write.
I use a lot of female protagonists in my work partly because I think that historically, there haven’t been enough of them in the speculative field (particularly science fiction). Hopefully things have gotten better in this regard (although I haven’t done any formal surveys for protagonist gender in recent short fiction), but I enjoy writing female characters in any case. Now I can’t help but wonder, though, whether some of these characters will be less liked and less sympathetic than their male counterparts if they’re put into positions of power.
Sometimes I’m able to sidestep this problem completely because I write a lot of teenage female protagonists who inherently lack power because of their young ages. But if I write a female president, will her anger read justified, or will it read like a mood swing? Will a discontented female read frustrated or merely whiny? And how much of this will be because of my mistakes in characterization vs. our society’s preconceptions about women in power?
It’s also easy, as a writer, to fall into one way of showing gender. For instance, I have a couple of stories about relationships in which it’s fairly obvious that the man has most of the power over the woman, and I show the women grappling with (and possibly overcoming) this imbalance. But being that I’m a science fiction writer who gets to write about the future, I don’t want to limit myself to portraying women who find ways to empower themselves while starting out unequal. What about the women who start out confident and in power, who can take over the traditional “hero” role in a story? What about the women who take for granted that they can be both powerful and likeable in a changed future society? I certainly don’t want to forget about showing those women characters.
What has your experience been as a reader or a writer? Do you find women characters in power to be sympathetic? How much do you think our society’s bias against this is reflected in our current literature?
The Practical Free Spirit 
I remember those experiments from psych. I think it’s different in a book (or at least I HOPE so) because the reader is forced to see it all from that person’s perspective. They get to know the character in a way that they cannot in real life.
That’s a good point. If we’re in a character’s head, so to speak, then we’re more likely to understand her motivations and feelings and cut her some slack. Perhaps then this would be a bigger problem for female characters who *aren’t* one of the POV characters.
I enjoy reading and writing about strong, independent women. I too write YA fantasy (though not scifi) and find myself playing with the roles girls occupy.
For me it’s less about setting up a standard of likability based on gender and more about creating a character where there is room to grow and change.
If she’s strong all the time, always in control, maybe she needs to learn to let go of the reigns once in awhile.
If she’s timid and unsure, maybe she needs to claim her personal power.
Each character must find this balance as they navigate through their own arches.
This is a great perspective on how woman are viewed. I’m reminded of the TV show where Geena Davis is President of the US. It didn’t seem to last long.
Thanks for this post 🙂
I definitely agree that characterization and character arcs shouldn’t be lessened in any way to deal with this perceived problem. But I do want to try to be more aware of how my audience is going to perceive how I show my female characters in positions of power (in this case meaning CEOs, space captains, political leaders, etc.), so at the very least I can be making a more conscious decision about it.
I’m watching through West Wing for the first time right now, and while I love the show, the way they portray women, both in terms of which roles they fill and how they are treated, can sometimes be painful to watch. Also the show hardly ever passes the Bechdel test.
Scary. But it makes a lot of sense. This is why people liked Hillary Clinton when she was just the first lady. When she became the senator and then ran for president, not so much.
Women are in difficult position. If we show our tender side, people would think we’re weak. If we acted tough, people would think we’re b*tches. What are we to do?
Good question! I wish I had the answer, but I’m still trying to figure it out for myself. I really hope that society will keep changing for the better — when I think about how difficult it was to be a woman in the early 60s, I feel so lucky to live now.
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