forum As a woman, what stories do you wish you saw more of?

Started April 18, 2018 by @Twitchy

tune

Hell yeah!

I actually don't have a problem with romance– I guess that my general opinion on them is that fantasy and sci-fi books are supposed to mimic life and relationships are a part of life, but I really hate a couple of things:

1. Women who marry the first guy they bang. If the character is young enough (or in a social/emotional position) to be a virgin at the time when the story occurs, they really shouldn't be getting hitched (or having kids). Give it some time, please, because I promise you if you thought you met interesting people in your teens, just wait till your twenties!
2. Women whose relationships define and consume them. If a fantasy book can't pass the Bechdel test, then it's not worth reading. Pretending that women don't have lives that don't involve their SO is BS.
3. Relationships that progress super-fast. Getting married after two weeks of knowing each other is a bad idea for so, so many reasons.

Two of my favorite female characters are Meredith and Christina from Grey's Anatomy. There's a point in which Meredith is involved in a love triangle with two other doctors, and she begs the guy to choose her over the other woman. Afterward, when they talk, she gets angry at him for making her beg, for making her demean herself like that. I admire Christina because she makes no bones about putting herself and her career before her relationships. Her marriage failed because she refused to sacrifice her work to have children.
So basically, I want women with actual pride in who they are and what they do. Please.

Women who save the men. You never really see that.

^^YUSS

I'm so glad I found this chat. As an aspiring author I am attempting to break as many stereotypes as possible. The male that has a female best friend and neither have ever really had an interest in dating each other. An entire cast of main characters where none of them get together in the end. They're all just good friends. A cast of character's that's relationships are built on mutual trust and it never focuses on romance for a second. Though I won't deny it happens in the background. Sometimes romantic desires help push a story along and show insight in to more characters. I want books to focus on the everyday mundanes of being a woman. While still showing that they are absolute bad*sses. Same goes for guys, show that they aren't all testosterone and tough stuff. Show them being weak and emotional.

In my stories I tried to make sure that I had platonic male/female friendships. Heck, some of the most important relationships in the story are really strong friendships, like Fern and Asher, Geneva and Jasper, Leah and Stephen, or Nich and Therese. I'm still trying to decide where to go with Jackson and Geneva and if I want Jackson and Geneva to be together or Geneva and Martha.

As a woman (and a disclaimer: I read primarily fantasy) what I would enjoy seeing more in books is female characters that are strong, yes, but who also fit the world the author has created for them. I'm sick and tired of the princesses who swear off dresses because dresses are so limiting and misogynistic and who run away with the stable boy the moment their daddy the king breathes word of a possible arranged marriage - in a country where all women wear dresses all the time and arranged marriages for the upper class is The Done Thing. I'm not saying the characters have to like dresses, or want an arranged marriage, but if you spend 16 years knowing that your marriage will probably be arranged for you, it's not going to come as the earth-shattering shock that I've seen in So. Many. Books.

There are a lot of overly-stereotypically-feminine, passive, need-to-be-constantly saved types, and there are a lot of incredibly-stereotypically-masculine, aggro, badass types. What I want to see are the women in between, who are strong at some things but need help with others, who are right about some things and wrong about others, who've made mistakes and learned from them, who are mothers, sisters, daughters, great-grandmothers (honestly I just want to see more family and fewer orphans/runaways) heroes, villains, best friends, rivals and more.

I'd like to see the same range for the men, too. But with beards. :P

^I agree with all of that, but oh my god that first paragraph. I like, super agree with that. I read a lot of fantasies as well, and I'm pretty over it.

Also the idea that girls and guys can't be just friends without one of them falling in love with the other.

Of the few books I have seen that have male + female = best friends BUT =/= romance, the fandom tended to ship the pair together anyway. :(

with women characters I read about there's usually two extremes:
-strong action woman who doesn't need a man but has no character traits
-damsel in distress who also has no character traits
and I am sick of both of them.

to me a really good female character with a love interest is Dana Scully from the TV show X-files. She's a capable scientist and has saved her love interest from danger as much as he has saved her. Also in the show there are many scully-centric episodes that show that (gasp) she has a private life not involving her love interest until they actually start getting closer together (don't worry about the relationship being sexist or anything its beautiful)

I want to see stories where the punk girl who beats up jerks at bars likes to embroider patches onto little kids jackets. Stories where the soccer playing girl and the make-up loving girl respect each other as equals. I want stories where boys who fawn over cute kittens and like pretty things don't feel like they have to hide that part of themselves to be seen as men. Where a straight boy and a straight girl are best friends and DON'T end up together romantically, and when they date other people don't drift apart. Stories in which lesbian girls are in loving relationships and aren't just there to be the straight guy's platonic girl best friend. Where bi girls aren't constantly pestered to pick a side. I want to see stories about trans women. Small women. Big women. Disabled women. Crazy women. Good women. Bad women. Christain women. Muslim women. Pagan women. Athiest women. Women who are equal with their male partners and aren't just along for the ride. I want powerful women, but I also want women who aren't powerful and that's okay. I want mothers who love being mothers and women with no children who love not having children. but I also want women who complain about their kids and women who will do anything to have some. Basically, I want diversity. I want the real, the ideal, AND the dystopic. I want to kill the idea that there's only one way to be a woman, because a lot of times when I read there is only one or two kinds of women, the damsel and the bad-a**, but they're both just templates and nothing like the real women I see every single day.

I want to see interesting, rounded charaters with goals and feelings which I can relate to PERIOD.

I wanna see more characters (in general, but female would be especially cool) with disabilities that have them portrayed as normal and not curses or the biggest worst most horrible part of themselves/ their lives! I want to see autistic girls represented for once!!!!! Have an autistic empath or a character with psychosis who can see into other realms and has to figure out a way to determine what is real! Characters with chronic pain or illnesses, prosthetic limbs, anxiety, depression, downs syndrome, ANYTHING!!!! Just make sure the character isn't one- dimensional or that their illness/ disability isn't all they talk about (unless it was a recent diagnosis/ injury, then that's normal but fades with time).

Definetly a story with a woman main character who’s only point isn’t to meet some man and fall in love with him, and that be her only purpose. Or, as a bisexual woman, maybe a story where there is a male who tries to get involved with a woman main character, and she ends up running off with another female instead.

I binged 'The Dragon Prince' a week ago and something I realized I never saw as a kid, and must have craved, was just seeing women in the background doing the same things as the men. In TDP they have female soldiers, of all different colors, scattered in the background (wearing non-sexualized armor, might I add!) Fighting things, protecting things, and I loved it. Overall they just portray women as equal in the way that I wish I saw when I was a kid. Besides them being in the background, one of my favorite characters is a deaf female general who has authority and respect and the show never questions it, she just is. That is what I need in stories.

I agree with Clare, we need more women doing what men do as if it's normal. (That's the reason I loved The Dragon Prince so much). And I think we need the woman who isn't afraid to be afraid. The woman who fears nothing is unrealistic and, in my opinion, annoying. I want to see woman who really fears things, then takes a deep breath and conquers that fear despite how scared she is.

Another thing, if you like strong women, then you’d love the book The Hatching. In it, there are three independent women- One is a brilliant professor, another is the leader of an army squad, and the third is the female president!

These are all great but I keep seeing the whole I want characters who are not just important as a love interest but characters (of all genders actually) who are important because of the emotional support they give the other characters( it can be friends, love interests, people they work with) rather than actually doing an action to move the story forward. This is really important because this is the person we all are in almost everyone else story– sorry that was really cheesy but the point is ONLY THERE FOR EMOTION=/=BAD CHARACTER

Edit that actually makes this relate to the question that I kinda said before but apparently it needs saying again: This character DOES NOT HAVE TO BE A WOMAN!

^^^^^^A hundred times, YES!!!

For being made in the 90's about the 40's, A League of Their Own has a massive amount of female character who are all pretty good!

• Dottie is the 'chosen one' type who just wants to live on her farm and play ball while waiting for her husband to come back from the war. She's pretty, smart, and talented, but not wholly 1-dimensional. We see her break down when
  Spoiler - click to show.

  Betty's husband is killed in action and Kit leaves the team
  Also it's a movie where the male and female leads aren't in a relationship.
• Kit is talented and cute, but also flawed, stubborn, and overlooked by everyone from her parents to teammates to baseball scouts. She was always repriminded by Dottie for swinging at high balls.
  Spoiler - click to show.

  Guess who hits the game-winning hit for Racine? Kit, who overcame her inability to hit high balls.
• Mae seems like a stereotypical "flirty dancer girl", but she does care about her teammates, doing things like poisoning the chaperone so they can go dancing, teaching Shirley how to read with a trashy romance but still , and defending Doris after her fight with Kit. And she also is the first one to speak up when Irving (???) says the league might get closed down.
• Doris is the tough tomboy, but is very protective of her girlfriend Mae okay so I ship them. a lot and stands up for Dottie in one scene, I believe. She was dating a trash heap of a guy but ended up breaking up with him, and was heavier than the others, yet her weight was made fun of once, and only at the beginning, and by Mae.
• Marla is a girl who isn't classically pretty, but is one hell of a ballplayer. Guess who gets married during the season? Marla.
• Honestly even the background girls like Evelyn who starts off as a battered mom with a fear of being yelled at, an inability to hit the cutoff, and a bratty son. By the finale, she's hit the cutoff in the most crucial moment, managed her fear of being yelled at, and made Stillwell Angel into a respectful man when he's grown up. And Alice, who's so superstitious she doesn't change her socks. And Shirley, who Mae teaches how to read on the way to games. And Helen Sue, who hits a guy mocking the team with a very hard throw, then shrugs it off with "I missed."

I just have a lot of feels for this movie, okay??