Two Girls to a Team

Sheen: Let those who do evil beware, from this day forth we shall be known as The Fantastic League of Justice Bringing Avenging Men!
Libby: Excuse me?
Sheen: ... And two girls!

— The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, "The N Men"

As TV audiences become more genre-savvy, tropes like The Smurfette Principle are becoming increasingly more obvious. Naturally, the quicker people pick up on this the more complaints the show is likely to get. So how do modern writers address this problem? Give the Ensemble two girls early on. Although this may not seem like much of an improvement, it does signify a (small) shift in how women and girls are portrayed in media. For one, a 3:2 male-female ratio is far closer to the actual male-female population than 4:1. Similarly, it also shows that being a woman in a male-majority group does not instantly relegate one to the position of The Heart (though those positions will still usually be filled by a woman). It also acts as a happy medium for writers who want the group to seem "equal", but don't want the show to be mistaken as "for girls". (Note that having a mostly male team is still perfectly unisex or even get inverted results.)

Also note that while two girls in an ensemble of five are where they're the most common, they're also seen in groups of six to eight as well (though not four, because then the split would actually be even, and that's another trope entirely). If it's two girls and one guy then it's Two Girls and a Guy, which is usually only present in female-targeted shows. This trope is about two women or girls in unisex or male-targeted shows.

This trope gained prominence in the '90s and is still very common (especially in children's works) in The New '10s. Frequently, the second woman will be The Smart Guy of the group due to tropes like Women Are Wiser or The Lancer to act as a Foil to both The Leader and The Heart. See also Tomboy and Girly Girl and Red Oni, Blue Oni, which is often what the two girls will be towards each other regardless of whether or not they are on a team. Affirmative Action Girl is when the second girl is specifically added later on; this trope applies both to series that started out with two girls and girls that were added.

Also see Girl's Night Out Episode. At least once in the series, there will be an episode where the boys are incapacitated, forcing the two girls to work together and possibly bond, despite any differences they might have.

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Example subpages

• Live-Action TV
• Video Games
• Western Animation

Other examples:

Advertising

• For a long time, M&M's had mascots for the Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange, and Green M&Ms, with the Green M&M standing as the lone woman and no Brown M&M representative. However, as of 2012, a female mascot has been added for the Brown M&Ms, making for a team of six characters with two women. Made even more blatant in a "No Talking or Phones" Warning (later adapted for a 2015 commercial in the "Better With M" campaign) that stars the entire team in a faux blockbuster trailer. As of 2022, it's been subverted with the addition of the Purple M&M, thus giving the team four males and three females.
• The French cookie brand Prince de Lu has Joe and Lily.

Anime & Manga

• In Attack on Titan, there are two female members of the Warrior Unit- Annie Leonhart, who has the power of the Female Titan, and Pieck Finger, who has the power of the Cart Titan. There are other female Titan Shifters, but none who are part of the unit.
• Bleach has it down to an art.
  • Ichigo's core adventure group consists of himself, Sado, Ishida, and Orihime. However, by proxy it also includes Rukia and Renji, making Rukia and Orihime the only two women in a six-person group.
  • There are thirteen captains and eleven of them are male. Soifon and Unohana are the only two women. Flashbacks to a century ago reveal this was in effect back then as well, with Soifon's predecessor Yoruichi being Unohana's companion woman among the captains. At the end of the story, this is averted. After Unohana dies fighting Kenpachi, Isane replaces her as captain of Squad 4, while Rukia replaces the male Ukitake as Captain of Squad 13 after his Heroic Sacrifice, and Lisa Yadomaru fills the vacant position of Captain of Squad 8 as Kyoraku gets promoted to Captain-commander.
  • Hitsugaya's Advance Squad was a warband of shinigami assigned to Karakura Town in anticipation of the arrancar threat. It consisted of Hitsugaya, Renji, Rangiku, Ikkaku, Yumichika, and Rukia. Rukia and Rangiku were the two women.
  • The X-Cution consists of six members (seven when Ichigo joins): Sado, Ginjou, Giriko, Yukio, Riruka, and Jackie. Riruka and Jackie are the two women.
  • The Royal Guard is a team of five: Ichibei, Kirinji, and Ouetsu are men while Kirio and Senjuumaru are women.
• Captain Tsubasa had Sanae and Kumi, and later Yoshiko and Machiko.
• The main crew of Cowboy Bebop consisted of three guys, Spike, Jet, and Ein, and two girls, Faye and Ed.
• Team Touden of Delicious in Dungeon, has Falin and Marcille after the former is rescued from the Red Dragon and, later, Marcille and Izutsumi.
• Occurred in Digimon Adventure and its sequel Digimon Adventure 02: Sora and Mimi prior to Hikari/Kari joining, followed by Miyako/Yolei and Hikari/Kari in 02. Amusingly inverted in one dub that mistook Iori/Cody for a girl and dubbed him as such.
• Eyeshield 21 has Mamori and Suzuna who are Two Girls to a Team (though only Mamori is the heart).
• Fairy Tail starts off this way, with Lucy and Erza as the two girls in a team with Natsu, Gray, and Happy, unless you don't count Happy, which makes it equal. Later, Wendy joins the group and brings Carla with her, actually tipping the ratio in favor of the girls.
  • However, the trope is played straight for the villain teams, when the series does have teams big enough to even have two women:
    • The Edolas arc is the first to have two female villains: Erza Knightwalker and Coco, though Coco doesn't even do anything villainous.
    • Sirius Island arc: Ultear and Merudy.
    • Tartaros arc: Kyouka and Seila.
• While in the manga of Fullmetal Alchemist (and the Brotherhood anime adaptation) The Smurfette Principle is in full effect, in the 2003 anime there are two female Homunculi: Lust and Sloth. Well, if you count Envy, whose gender is... indeterminate, the manga has about one and a half female homunculi, which sort of counts.
• Genshiken has two female club members in the first season, Saki and Ohno, making it this trope. Ogiue joins in the second season, making things slightly more even, and after two male characters graduate the ratio is 4:3. Ironically, post-cancellation-and-revival the club is almost all-female.
• In Ginga Densetsu Weed there are only two female dogs in the cast. Nether have any combat ability, whereas all the males are badasses. One is a Damsel in Distress and the other is a mother.
• Satsuki and Momoko from Ghost Stories.
• The Crow's two managers, Yachi and Kiyoko, of Haikyuu!!.
• Inuyasha: Kagome and Sango (with Shippo, Inuyasha, and Miroku). It becomes 3-3 if Kirara (who is a non-talking but still fully sapient nekomata) is counted.
• Inverted in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War. For most of the series, the student council is made up of two boys (Shirogane and Ishigami) and three girls (Kaguya, Fujiwara, and Iino).
• In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Quint Nakajima and Megane Alpine were the only female members in Zest Grangaitz's team, having a ratio of 2:3.
• While Naruto for most of its run enforced The Smurfette Principle almost religiously, Kishimoto got better about this towards the end; there's Tsunade and Mei Terumi of the Five Kages, and Fuu and Yugito Nii of the nine Jinchuuriki.
• In One Piece, Nami and Nico Robin are the two female Straw Hats. Before Robin joined, Nefertari Vivi traveled with the Straw Hats until they reached Alabasta and ended the civil war there, earning her status as an Honorary True Companion of the crew and getting the closest a temporary companion got to full Straw Hat membership.
• Pokémon: The Series does this during the XY seasons, one being The Heart and the other the Tagalong Kid, having a 2:2 ratio.
• Pui Pui Molcar has Teddy and Choco as the two girls among the five main Molcars. Season 2 upgrades this into a Gender-Equal Ensemble with the addition of the Ascended Extra Rose.
• The villain organizations of the Pretty Cure franchise have usually The Smurfette Principle, but sometimes also qualify for this trope. However, they may work for the same organization, but not in the same team.
  • In Futari wa Pretty Cure, we have Poisonny of the Dark Five, and Regine of the Seeds of Darkness. The Seeds of Darkness are introduced after the deaths of the Dark Five.
  • In Yes! Pretty Cure 5, we have Arachnea and Hadenya, both are working for different divisions of Nightmare, also the latter is introduced after the former's death. Desparaia is not counted.
  • In Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GO!GO!, we have Anacondy and Shibiretta. Neither of them replaces the other one, but they hate each other and they are working against each other, despite working for the same boss.
  • In Fresh Pretty Cure!, we have Eas and Northa. However, Eas pulls a Heel–Face Turn and Northa shows up much later in the series.
  • In HeartCatch Pretty Cure!, we have Dark Precure and Sasorina... who are rarely seen together, since Dark Precure is the superior one.
  • In Doki Doki Pretty Cure, we have Marmo and Regina. And Regina is the superior one.
• Diane and Merlin are the only female members of the Seven Deadly Sins in The Seven Deadly Sins. Since the group split up ten years ago, Merlin barely appeared outside flashbacks until the Kingdom Infiltration arc.
• In Food Wars!, the alumni judges during the Hell's Camp arc are comprised of 3 male judges and 2 female judges, Fuyumi and Hinako.
• Chocolate and Tira Misu of Sorcerer Hunters. The manga sometimes had Gateau's sister Eclair as a Sixth Ranger, and Big Mama's assistant Dota was treated as part of the gang despite not going on missions.
• Tamagotchi usually has this gender-inverted. Mametchi and Kuchipatchi are the only two boys in the billed main cast, especially in the last two seasons of the original saga, Yume Kira Dream, and Miracle Friends.
• Tentomushi no Uta: The main characters are seven siblings with the surname Isshuu, consisting of five boys (Kaji, Mizuo, Mokusuke, Kintaro and Tsuchimaru) and two girls (Tsukimi and Hiyoko).
• In Tiger & Bunny we have the Blue Rose and Dragon Kid. Played with in that Camp Gay member Fire Emblem also considers himself "One of the Girls", to the others' chagrin.
• The Gung-ho Guns in Trigun Maximum only has two female members, Dominique and Elendira. In the anime, however, Elendira doesn't exist so it's just Dominique.
• During the first seasons UFO Robo Grendizer followed the example of the series it was a sequel to (Great Mazinger and Mazinger Z), and Hikaru was the only woman on the team. However Maria joined the group in the third season, and the series began to play this trope together with several others.
  • The main characters of Mazinger Z were Back for the Finale of Great Mazinger, so there were two women in the team (Sayaka and Jun).
• Yu-Gi-Oh! made keeping the number of girls on the show practically an art. Season one had Anzu/Téa and Mai. Season two, they got a little crazy and had Anzu/Téa, Mai, Ishizu, and Shizuka/Serenity all involved, although only rarely all in the same episode, as Ishizu wasn't really a member of "the gang". So, they sent Mai in a coma and then left Ishizu behind when they shuffled the cast off to the filler arc, leaving just Anzu/Téa and Shizuka/Serenity for half of Season three. Season four had Anzu/Téa and Rebecca, and also for the first half of season five. The final arc had two different five-man bands, one modern, one ancient, with the ancient one having both Isis and Mana (three if you count Kisara).
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Asuka/Alexis and Rei/Blair are the only main female characters in seasons 3 and 4. This is the result of Rei becoming more prominent after her one-episode role in the first season, during which Asuka had been the only female main character by way of The Smurfette Principle.
  • Suddenly, the third season zig-zags this trope, as both of Asuka and Rei are underdeveloped. So, Brron sacrificed Asuka via sadness while they left Rei behind, therefore the cast undergoes frequent changes. This leaves the cast with no female protagonist for half of season 3.
  • A fan alternative to season 3 had Yuka, Asuka, Seika, Rei, Reggie and Mara all involved until the end of the first half, as Asuka sacrificed herself to save the others. So she ended up trapped and manipulated by Yubel in an alternate dimension, while Brron then sacrificed Rei via sadness, leaving just Yuka and Mara for half of season 3 (four if you still count Seika and Reggie). In fact, Yuka stays in the cast throughout the entire series.
  • Camula and Tania are the only female Seven Stars Assassins/Shadow Riders. Interestingly, these two are among the four best duelists of the Seven Stars Assassins, and they are two of three duelists who won spirit keys. Also, both of them were defeated by Yuka through designated girl fights (in a fan alternative to the anime).
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, Aki/Akiza and Ruka/Luna are the only females of Team 5Ds.
  • Misty and Carly of the Dark Signers. Interestingly, Misty was the only one who has a Designated Girl Fight (with Aki), while Carly's opponent was her Love Interest Jack. Also, both of them were defeated after the Big Bad Rudger/Roman. However, then The Man Behind the Man showed up.

Asian Animation

• BoBoiBoy: BoBoiBoy and his friends formed a Gender-Equal Ensemble until Fang joined the group in Season 2. Yaya and Ying are the two girls of the group of five.
• In Oddbods, Newt and Bubbles are the only two female Oddbods in the team of seven.
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: The main group of goats consists of the male goats Weslie, Paddi, Sparky, and Slowy and the female goats Tibbie and Jonie.
• YoYo Man: Yamy and Qiube, once the latter was introduced, are the only two girls in the Yoyo Supermen.

Comic Books

• 20 Fists: The No Names gang has two women, Chel and Rei, out of five members.
• The Avengers:
  • This happened in the 1960s with the Avengers, with the Scarlet Witch being joined by The Wasp or the Black Widow.
  • The All-New, All-Different Avengers have the new Thor and Ms Marvel, out of a team of seven.
• Champions: In Champions (2016), the team's lineup was four boys (Sam Alexander, Miles Morales, Amadeus Cho, Scott Summers) and two girls (Kamala Khan, Viv Vision). This shifted when Riri Williams and Nadia Van Dyne joined the team in the series' second (2019) run.
• The Defenders: In the 1970s, the originally all-male Defenders evolved into a team with a gender-balanced core of two males (Nighthawk and the Hulk) and two females (Valkyrie and Hellcat).
• Doom Patrol: Several rosters of the team had only two female members.
  • In Grant Morrison's run, the only female members who stuck (counting the genderfluid being Rebis resulting from Larry Trainor/Negative Man and Eleanor Poole merging into a single entity) were Crazy Jane and Dorothy Spinner. The alternate future one-shot Doom Force would also depict a future incarnation of the team that had an adult Dorothy Spinner as the only female on the team besides Flux.
  • In John Arcudi's run, Fever and Freak were the only two members of the roster who were women.
  • John Byrne's run initially had a third female member named Faith, but she was phased out early on, leaving Elasti-Girl and Nudge as the only two females on this iteration of the team.
• Guardians of the Galaxy:
  • The original team started off as four guys, then joined by Starhawk, who occasionally switches bodies with his sister Aleta (long story). The second issue of their first series has them meet Nikki Gold, bringing the team's gals to two, but Aleta wasn't treated as a full-on member until the 90s, and at that point the team gained another gal in Replica.
  • The prototype version of the modern team, in Annihilation: Conquest, had Mantis and Deathcry as its only gals. Then Deathcry caught a case of friendly fire.
  • Guardians 3000 has Nikki absent due to time going weird, Replica just completely gone, and Aleta forgotten. Instead, the Guardians have newcomer Geena Drake, and Starhawk experiencing a Gender Bender, though Nikki does soon reappear.
• Justice League of America: The New Reichsmen of Earth-10 from Mastermen #1 appear to have only two female members; Brünhilde and Blitzen.
• Justice Society of America: For years, the only woman on the JSA was Wonder Woman, and she wasn't allowed to participate in any major way since she was headlining her own book. In the later years of the 1940s, both Wonder Woman and Black Canary were active members of the JSA, making the ratio 5 men and 2 women. Red Tornado was around and fought alongside the JSA from the first issue, but she wasn't a full member of the team.
• Nextwave: Warren Ellis deliberately intended to reverse this trope when he created the series; they're three women and two guys. Although by that time it was nothing new, Chris Claremont having done it two decades earlier with the original lineups of the New Mutants and Excalibur.
• Pack: Amongst the titular Pack, the only female members are Chastity and Diligence.
• Red Robin: The Council of Spiders are a team of eight with only two women. When the group appeared in a Batman story they were expanded into an international organization and gained at least one more woman but the organization's team that was first seen maintains their original lineup.
• Relative Heroes: The team is made up of two girls and three boys all of whom are siblings by blood or adoption.
• Runaways: The series is a notable inversion. The original team was composed of two guys and four girls. While the team lineup changed many times in subsequent volumes, the girls always outnumbered the boys.
• Shazam!: As of post-Flashpoint, the Shazam family has Mary Bromfield and Darla Dudley, a 1:3 ratio in a team of six.
• Supergirl: In the Supergirl/Green Lantern crossover Red Daughter of Krypton, Supergirl and Bleez are the only female members of Guy Gardner's Red Lantern Corps. Bleez was actually glad that Supergirl joined because she wasn't the only girl anymore.
• Teen Titans: Titans (Rebirth) originally starred four men and two women: Dick Grayson (Nightwing), Wally West (Flash), Roy Harper (Arsenal), Garth (Tempest), Donna Troy, and Lilith Clay (Omen).
• The Ultimates: Hellcat and Valkyrie are the only gals in the Defenders. Come New Ultimates, it's just Hellcat, as Valkyrie had joined the Ultimates.
• X-Men: This happened with thet X-Men, with Polaris joining Jean Grey. In the All-New, All-Different team, Jean Grey soon returned to the X-Men to join Storm, and after the Phoenix' death, she was replaced by Kitty Pryde.
• Young Avengers: The series starts with four guys, but introduces two girls in the first couple of issues. After Avengers: The Children's Crusade ends with Cassie and Vision dead and Eli seemingly retired, the reformed team has the same dynamic with [Kate Bishop and America Chavez.

Comic Strips

• Baby Blues: Inverted. The MacPherson family has two boys, Darryl and Hammie, alongside three girls, Wanda, Zoe, and Wren.
• Dennis the Menace (US): Gina and Margaret are the two girls in Dennis' circle of friends.

Fan Works

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon):
  • Amongst the group of Titans who stick with Godzilla for most of the story, there are two heroic females (Vivienne and Mothra) to four heroic males (San, Big G himself, Thor and Rodan).
  • Amongst the several members of Alan Jonah's paramilitary who get characterization, two of them are confirmed to be female (Mariko and Tejada), whilst Jonah himself plus Sergeant Travis and Guard B-04 are male.
  • The only two confirmed female members of the Monarch Torch and Bury Operation's infantry, excluding Tejada who isn't in the field, are B3-Cap and G5-Tango.
• At the beginning of Atonement, Vista and Sophia are the only Brockton Bay female Wards. Vista's not happy with her bully of a partner and is predictably pleased when Madison joins the team.
• Krysta and Starla in My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic.
• While not part of the same team, the core group of six kaiju in The Bridge has both Mothra and Destroyah.
• The Flash Sentry Chronicles: Several of the various teams seen across the series have only had two female members.
  • The Royal Knights only have two current female members, Heather Bloom and Ruby Scarlet.
  • The team chosen to travel to the Lost City of Faust includes Trixie and Ruby. Though shortly after arriving the team meets Shining Soul, a filly who ends up joining them with her brother. But partway through the war against The Cult of Shadow, Soul is separated from the rest of the team, bringing the girls down to just two again until she rejoins.
  • The cult serving Shadow Corrupter has Tempera and Terror Card.
• Hakumei: Sakura and Hinata are the only girls in the titular team, compared to their seven male teammates.
• Inverted in Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!. Instead of forming a Power Trio with Ochaco Uraraka and Tenya Iida, Izuku forms a Five-Man Band with them as well as Momo Yaoyorozu and Itsuka Kendou. They name themselves The Monstars.
• The main band of hunters in The Night Unfurls ends up with a 3:2 male-female ratio, the two female hunters being Sanakan and Lily respectively.
• In Power Rangers Take Flight, Pink and Blue instead of the traditional Pink and Yellow Rangers (although Casey's suit mainly has white spandex; as a result, people keep calling her the White Ranger, much to her irritation).
• In Superman of 2499: The Great Confrontation, the newborn Justice League is made up of five members, two of them female: Wonder Woman and Supergirl.
• At the beginning of The Unfantastic Adventures of Bizarro No. 1, Bizarro Wonder Woman and Bizarro Supergirl are the only female members of the Bizarro Justice League.
• Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus, the Red Lotus Trio — consisting of Chloe, Atticus and Lexi — become Red Lotus Uprising to accommodate Amelia and Hewie.
• Prehistoric Earth has the titular park's rescue team initially consist of Five-Man Band Drew, Jack, Adrian, Leon, and Alice before eventually incorporating Sixth Ranger Cynthia near the end of 'Phase 1'. Similarly, the subsequent Continuity Reboot Prehistoric Park Reimagined likewise starts out with the same Five-Man Band before eventually expanding to include Cynthia at the beginning of 'Phase 2'.
• Inverted in The Sunshine Crew: Payson and Spencer are the only guys in the titular group.

Films — Animation

• GoGo Tomago and Honey Lemon are the only female members of the titular superhero team in Big Hero 6, also being the Tomboy and Girly Girl with GoGo being The Lancer and Honey being The Heart.
• Out of the nine circus bugs in A Bug's Life, two are female; Gypsy the gypsy moth and Rosie the black widow spider.
• Though technically appearing in the live-action segments of Fantasia, the Philadelphia Orchestra had only two female musicians when the film was made, due to sexist hiring practices of the time. And they both play the harp.
• In Finding Nemo, Peach and Deb are the only two female members of the Tank Gang.
• Astrid and Ruffnut of How to Train Your Dragon are the only girls on Hiccup's dragon rider team and the latter is mistaken for her twin brother. The second film adds Valka, Hiccup's mother.
• The Incredibles:
  • The Parrs have two female members, these being Elastigirl and Violet.
  • Two of the six wannabe Supers introduced in Incredibles 2 are female, being Brick and Voyd.
• Inverted in Inside Out, where out of the five emotions that control Riley, Fear and Anger are the only guys.
• Tigress and Viper of Kung Fu Panda, nicely averting The Smurfette Principle.
• Ducky and Cera in The Land Before Time. Although it could have been worse. In the original script Cera was actually going to be a male character, but George Lucas, who was a producer on the film, suggested changing the gender for a little extra diversity.
• Wyldstyle and Uni-Kitty from The LEGO Movie. Justified when it turns out they're all toys being played with by Finn. Of course a small boy would imagine more male characters than female.

Films — Live Action

• The two girls, three (or sometimes four) guys setup is becoming very common in horror films involving teens or early twenty-somethings. Recent examples include Cabin Fever, A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Storage 24, My Little Eye and House of Wax (2005). The fact is (obviously) lampshaded in The Cabin in the Woods, which points out that two are needed to fulfill the roles of the Virgin and the Whore.

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• Common in the Alien franchise.
  • In Alien there are two female characters: Ripley and Lambert.
  • In Aliens there is Vasquez and Ripley.
  • In Alien: Resurrection there is Call and Ripley. Before that, Call and Hillard were the only two female crew members on the Betty. Hillard is killed off shortly after Ripley joins them, thus keeping the trope intact.
  • In Prometheus, which is set in the same universe there are also two major female characters: Meredith Vickers and Dr. Elizabeth Shaw. Ford was on board too but was for the most part a fairly minor character.
  • Alien vs. Predator: The only two female members of an eleven-person expedition are Alexa (the protagonist) and Adele Rousseau.
• Antigang: Serge's elite antigang squad has two female members: Margaux and Ricci.
• The Breakfast Club has Allison and Claire.
• Daylight's End: There are two female combatants in the group of survivors, Sam and Earnesta.
• Day of the Dead (2008): The core rag-tag band of survivors consists of two females and four males.
• The Fast and the Furious has Dominic Toretto’s team, often rotating their female members out and maintaining the trope.
  • It starts with The Fast and the Furious (2001) with Letty and Mia.
  • The fourth film Fast & Furious has Letty killed early on but introduces Gisele.
  • Subverted in Fast & Furious 6 in that Letty, who turns out was Not Quite Dead joins the team to make three active female members. Played straight again after Gisele dies. Dom also offers Officer Elena Neves, Hobbs’ second-in-command and ally to the team, a place on the team but she declines, saying law enforcement is where she belongs but also partly so he’s free to rekindle his relationship with Letty.
  • In Furious 7 Mia doesn’t participate in the team’s latest heist after she and her and Brian's son are targeted by Deckard Shaw and forced to go into hiding, and by the end she and Brian retire from the team so they can raise their family. In turn, computer hacker Ramsey whom the team was sent to rescue from a terrorist group later becomes the second female member.
  • Subverted in F9 with Mia joining the team's mission as it involves her and Dom's brother Jakob.
• The Journey of Natty Gann: The group of juvenile cattle rustlers Natty briefly joins has one other girl in it.
• Kill Bill's Deadly Viper Assassination Squad is an inversion, the only male members out of six being the leader Bill and his brother Budd. Could also be considered an example of The One Guy if you count Bill separately.
• Late Night (2019) features the lone female host in late-night television hiring her only female writer, making the writers room this for most of the film.
• In Leviathan (1989), the crew of mining shack 7 (i.e. the cast) consists of six men and two women.
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park: There are only two females amongst a moderate-sized cast of males, across either team sent to the island: Sarah and Kelly.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Black Widow and Scarlet Witch in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
  • Gamora and Mantis in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. For the final battle, they had a third girl, Nebula, on the team as well, but she left afterwards on reasonably good terms with the Guardians to pursue her own goals.
  • By the end of Avengers: Endgame the Guardians have Mantis and Nebula though it's implied they will be looking for Gamora of the 2014 timeline who came to the present day but took off after Thanos's defeat.
  • Captain Marvel: At the beginning of the movie, the Kree Starforce has Vers and Minn-Erva.
• Connie and either Tammy or Julie for the eponymous hockey team in The Mighty Ducks series
• Mindhunters the team of six trainees has four men and only two women - Sarah and Nicole. A Sixth Ranger joins the team and he is also male, making this even more pronounced.
• Scream (1996): The film starts out with a 5-person friend group made up of Sidney and Tatum (two girls) with Billy, Stu, and Randy (3 guys). Tatum is the red to Sidney's blue. Gale Weathers is also a prominent character, but she has little interaction with the teens for the first half of the film. About halfway through the film, when Tatum dies, and all of the protagonists come together against the killer, Gale Weathers takes Tatum's place as the second girl.
• Stripes: Stella and Louise fit this trope, though they're not part of the squad in question, just the two female MPs who keep bailing Winger and Zisky out of trouble as part of their romance subplot. They both do later join in the rescue mission at the end, where it's played perfectly straight.
• The Thing prequel, unlike the famously all-male cast of the 1982 film has two women in the camp- both scientists though Juliette is assimilated early on, leaving Kate the only female for the rest of the film.
• The film version of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader added a young Narnian girl named Gael who becomes Lucy's friend on the ship. Susan appears in the film as well, but only as a cameo.
• Wendy: Among the Lost Boys there's Cudjoe Head and Wendy.

Literature

• Rachel and Cassie in Animorphs, a group with four guys. During one mission where said guys start a geek-centric conversation (Marco's idea for a future Star Trek show), Rachel declares the next mission will be girls-only.
• The main character ensemble of Black Legion consists of Nefertari, Gyre, and six men - eight men if you count Djedhor and Mekhari.
• This trope is Older Than Print. In Geoffery Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, the only two women on the Pilgrimage are The Prioress and the Wife of Bath.
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Five children visited the Wonka factory, and Veruca Salt and Violet Beauregarde were the two girls.
• The Chronicles of Narnia:
  • Susan and Lucy in Prince Caspian.
  • Calormene princess Aravis and her talking horse, Hwin, in The Horse and His Boy.
• Downplayed in the original novel of Carl Sagan, Contact, where Faster-Than-Light Travel machine allows humanity to send 5 people, the governments briefly discuss on whether they should send 3 men and 2 women or 3 women and 2 men; ultimately they decide that it doesn't matter since regardless of the choice, there's always going to be one more individual either gender. They end up sending 3:2 men-women ratio.
• Discworld: Men at Arms expands the City Watch expanding beyond humans, recruiting Detritus (a troll), Cuddy (a dwarf), and Angua (a werewolf). In Feet of Clay, they then get Cheery Littlebottom (a female dwarf), with Cheery and Angua being the main females in the Watch books from then on. (Salacia von Humpeding the vampire signs up in Thud!, Precious Jolson is referenced in the same book and gets a brief speaking role in Snuff, and Angua claims in Men at Arms there are several other female dwarfs, but they're not openly female like Cheery is. If there are any others, they're resolutely Out of Focus.)
• Endling: Byx and Khara are the two females in the Five-Man Band.
• The Famous Five has Julian, Dick, and Timmy to Georgina and Anne. But only counting the humans, it's a Gender-Equal Ensemble.
• Guardians of the Flame: In the party starting out Andy-Andy and Doria are the two women. However, the arrangement lasts only through the first books, with more female characters added later that don't fit into this dynamic.
• Bellatrix and Alecto are the only female Death Eaters named in Harry Potter. Narcissa, Bellatrix's sister and Lucius Malfoy's wife, was never officially one, though she did have a strong affiliation with them.
• Inverted in Haruhi Suzumiya; the SOS Brigade is made up of three girls (Haruhi, Yuki and Mikuru) and two boys (Kyon and Koizumi).
• In Loyal Enemies, after it looks like The Smurfette Principle might strike for a while when Shelena is travelling with Veres, Gloom and Rest, Virra joins the team and it becomes two women (well, a girl and a she-werewolf) and three men (actually, one man, one dragon, and one boy).
• The main team (of four) from the Mediochre Q Seth Series has Charlotte and Dhampinella. However, if you take into account the fringe members Desra, Melz and Rowan, not to mention Queen MAB, then Mediochre and Joseph seem to count as an inversion.
• In Six of Crows, Inej and Nina are the two women in a group with four other men.
• Sally and Cindy in Spooksville. Early on it's actually equal but later Bryce becomes a permanent member, meaning now they are 2 girls to 3 boys, the others being Adam and Watch.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: The current generation of Starks includes four boys (Robb, Jon, Bran, and Rickon) and two girls (Sansa and Arya). The gender of their direwolves also correspond to them, with four males (Grey Wind, Ghost, Summer, and Shaggydog) and two females (Lady and Nymeria).
• Star Risk, Ltd. has M'chel Riss and Jasmine King. Riss, a former Alliance Marine, does double duty as The Hero and The Lancer, while King, formerly an office manager and research specialist with a rival PMC, is The Smart Guy.
• Villains by Necessity: Kaylana and Valerie are the women in the party of villains on their quest.
• Wars of the Realm: Drew's Ragtag Band of Misfits-turned-counterterror team consists of ten people counting himself. The only girls are his Love Interest Sydney and Piper, one of Ben's techs.
• Whateley Universe: Inverted with Team Kimba; Hank and Ayla are the only guys. However, initially Hank was the only guy, Ayla being considered one of the girls; his gender was retconned once he got his own stories.
• Worm averts this for the most part, with most groups having a decent mix of genders, but does have some examples.
  • The initial Brockton Bay Wards roster has only two girls; Shadow Stalker and Vista.
  • The local Protectorate has Battery and Miss Militia as the only women in it's initial roster.
  • The Undersiders subvert this trope at first, but later invert it. They start as a Gender-Equal Ensemble with four members, but later recruit Taylor, becoming a Five-Man Band with two boys. Later members Imp, Parian and Foil are all girls, with Grue and Regent remaining the only male core members throughout the story.

Manhua

• In Cyber Weapon Z, Rosaland and Anling are the only women present in the eponymous program, with Anling being the only human one.

Music

• In the Japanese co-ed band AAA, Misako and Chiaki were the only girls out of a group of seven for most of its history. (A third girl, Yukari, left two years after its formation.) Chiaki would later depart in 2017, leaving Misako as the only girl until the group's disbandment in 2020.
• Delain were one of many Symphonic Metal bands employing the Male Band, Female Singer trope with Charlotte Wessels until 2015 when they added guitarist Merel Bechtold (she did not stay in the band for very long, though).
• Fleetwood Mac: The Mac's most successful line-up between 1975 and 1987 (and again from 1997 to early 2018) featured Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks. They're also this to the current line-up.
• The Gathering was this between 2004-2014 where Marjolein Kooijman was the bassist in the band in addition to singers Anneke van Giersbergen (before 2007) and Silje Wergeland (after 2008).
• After a couple of years of alternating in the "Smurfette" role as sole female band member, Yulia Usova and Line Kolesnik are now both members of the Otava Yo folk-rock band and appear on stage together as two-thirds of its violin section.
• Sly and the Family Stone was the first multi-racial and multi-gendered band in America (if not the world). Trumpeter Cynthia Robinson and pianist/singer Rose Stone were the two women in the band's classic lineup.
• Therion had a fluid line-up for years as far as singers and classical performers went, but then settled on having two female singers with different kinds of style since around 2010. One has been Lori Lewis (though on tours, she is substituted by other singers since 2014), while the other position has been rotating over the years (the most consistent was Linnéa Vikström, the daughter of their male lead singer Thomas Vikström, from 2010 to 2018).
• Tristania was also this between 2010 and their disbandment (officially in 2022): they had Mariangela Demurtas on vocals and Gyri Smørdal Losnegaard on second guitar.
• Vocaloid:
  • Gender-inverted with the Crypton group in promotional materials. Len and Kaito are the only boys on the team.
  • Also gender-inverted with Zhiyu Moke and Yuezheng Longya of the VSingers, as well as Gakupo and Ryuto of Internet-Co.
  • Played straight with Power-FX. Sweet Ann and Ruby are their only female Vocaloids and the rest are male.

Podcasts

• The Adventure Zone: Balance has the Starblaster crew, which consisted of five men (Magnus, Merle, Taako, Barry, and Davenport) and two women (Lucretia and Lup.)

Professional Wrestling

• CHIKARA 2009-2011: Sara Del Rey and Daizee Haze were the only women to ever be members of the otherwise all-male Die Bruderschaft des Kreuzes.

Tabletop Games

• Magic: The Gathering:
  • The five major gods of Theros:
    • Female: Nylea (green), Thassa (blue)
    • Male: Erebos (black), Heliod (white), Purphoros (red)
  • Averted with the main cast of planeswalkers:
    • Female: Chandra (red), Liliana (black), Nissa (green)
    • Male: Gideon (white), Jace (blue)
  • Averted with the five gods of Amonkhet:
    • Female: Bontu (black), Hazoret (red), Oketra (white)
    • Male: Kefnet (blue), Rhonas (green)
  • Averted with the five Dragonlords, who use Gender-Inclusive Writing anyway:
    • Female: Atarka (red and green), Dromoka (green and white), Kolaghan (black and red)
    • Male: Ojutai (white and blue), Silumgar (blue and black)
• Sentinels of the Multiverse has four teams and two of them start out exhibiting this. The Freedom Five start out with Tachyon and Wraith as its female members and picks up Unity as an intern and unofficial sixth member later, while the Dark Watch have Nightmist and Expatriette as the only female members until Pinion pulls a Heel–Face Turn and joins them. The other two teams are the Sentinels, whose only female member is the Idealist, and the Prime Wardens, whose lineup consists of one woman (Fanatic), three men (Argent Adept, Haka, Captain Cosmic), and a masculine-presenting nonbinary extraterrestrial (Tempest)... outside Tactics where they gain the female alien Sky-Scraper as an additional member, and the RPG where it's inverted with two men (Argent Adept and Anubis) and three women (Visionary, Arataki, and Fanatic).

Web Animation

• In True Tail, the two girls are Doh-Li the Sorceress and Melody the Bard.
• Pink and Purple from Stickman Stories
• The Music Freaks: Milly and Hailey are the only two female members of The Music Club.

Webcomics

• Squadron 128 in It's Walky! follows this trope most of the time: first with Joyce and Sal, then Sal and Dina, and later with Joyce and Robin.
• Looking for Group has Benny and Pella. Currently a subversion, as it turns out Richard is a girl (and appears to be identifying as such now).
• This is trope is originally inverted in Our Little Adventure, with three girls in a Five-Man Band. After Pauline died, she was replaced by Emily. However, a third male, Jordie, joined the group, and Emily died, leaving only two girls.

Web Video

• The Nostalgia Chick and MarzGurl are the only women in Kickassia (That Chick With The Goggles was invited but had been inactive on the site for quite a while and only gave a brief cameo on a phone call). The usual Double Standards are averted as they're as Ax-Crazy and fight-happy as the guys. Suburban Knights adds Obscurus Lupa to the cast, as well as a female Mook, the Witch of the Woods. All three of them return for the fourth-anniversary special, To Boldly Flee, and JesuOtaku (pre-transition) shows up as well, though by this point there are nearing twenty men in the main cast, so the female reviewers are still ridiculously outnumbered.
• Outside Xbox: The team consists of Andy, Mike, Luke, Jane, and Ellen.

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