Alphonse: [to Greed's gang] There's only one thing I'm afraid of.
Martel: What?
Alphonse: Here it comes.
[Izumi breaks in, dragging an unconscious gang member.]
Izumi: Hi, please excuse me.
Gang member: Hey... who're you?
[Izumi throws unconscious gang member at Al]
Izumi: Why the hell did you get kidnapped?!
Alphonse: Sorrrrrrrrry!
Gang member: Hey you! Don't pretend we're not here!
Thug from Hell's Nest: Who the hell are you?
Izumi: I'M A HOUSEWIFE!!
Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.
— Professor William Marston, creator of Wonder Woman, 1943
Janna: I love pink! It's my favorite. [...] I just hate contributing to gender stereotypes.
Game: Janna likes pink AND fights the patriarchy.
Game: Janna likes pink AND fights the patriarchy.
— Star vs. the Forces of Evil, "Sleepover"
"If you open a book and read about a big family with 7 children and a housewife, a husband who is the one who earns the money and yet this family barely comes around on top of it in a society which is very old-fashioning then you are assuming that woman, that female isn't a perfect example of feminism or even close to be an example of the perfect equal wife to her husband. What thought is involved there? To show a family but certainly not to show the most feministic character."
Whether something is considered "feminist" or not really depends on how it's read. Take Terminator 2 for example, on the one hand you have a strong willed badass female protagonist who uses guns and does pull-ups and has dimensions and all sorts of fun stuff. On the other hand, her primary motivation is her son, and he is the second coming, not her. Some people don't like that. Mulan also has this girl who's smart, dimensional, learning stuff, being a warrior and out duding the dudes. But on the other hand, again, her whole motivation is her father. Some people don't like that. Also she chooses marriage over being on the emperor's council... whatever, it's implied.
Part of feminism is that you don't have preconceived notions about a person simply because of how they dress, how society might look at a girl or a woman in a mini-skirt and think to themselves, "they must be a slut," when in reality they could just really like mini-skirts.
"Come on now, darling. Don't cry. Only boy superheroes are allowed to cry."
— Wonderella the elder to Wonderita, The Non-Adventures of Wonderella
"The way Scully dresses here is pure early 90s businesswoman. At this point it was felt that if women were going to make it in a man's world (oh how I hate the angle shows take rather than just allowing them to flourish as women in the work place) then they had to dress with a severe masculine image... Scully’s knickers and bra are the least sexy I have ever seen on a woman (not that my experience stretches that far you understand) and that includes Bridget Jones."
—Doc Oho
on The X-Files, "Pilot"
on The X-Files, "Pilot""Yeah, Peach definitely looks like she'll be more comfortable throwing a tea party than a touchdown pass, but to suggest that this makes her inherently weak strikes me as a backward sliding argument at best. After all, if you're gonna broadly declare that a character's girlishness is somehow a weak trait in and of itself, regardless of context or the tone and personality of the character, don't you run the risk of sending young women the equally negative message that the only way for a woman to be strong is for her to be a man?"
— Moviebob, in this episode.
.Bowser: Y'know, Peach, it's girls like you who set women's rights movements back about 400 years. You wear a dress and heels, you bitch slap opponents, you have a vegetable garden, and one of your most powerful moves involves your ass!
[Peach rages and clobbers Bowser with a frying pan]
Bowser: Where did you get a frying pan?!
Peach: Um... in my kitchen?
[Peach rages and clobbers Bowser with a frying pan]
Bowser: Where did you get a frying pan?!
Peach: Um... in my kitchen?
— Brawl Taunts
"The few "good" women I know, are those that act like men. Friends, sister, they're all really kind and nice women... but they all act like guys. Women that act like women, are usually bitches...".
Too often, feminism is associated with a certain type of lady. In the movies, she's usually the tomboy who likes to snarl at the girly-girls and thinks she's better than everyone else because she doesn't subscribe to society's standards. These girls suffer from what I like to call Special Snowflake Syndrome. "I'm not the kind of girl who wears makeup and heels." Can I get a slow clap? This does not make you better than the "kind of girl" who does.
— A blogger defending Legally Blonde as a feminist movie
Valka was never intended to be a serious physical match for Drago, nor should she have been, because the whole point of her character aligned with her son's is to personify the Viking nation's progressive anti-violence stance. Sorry that Valka was too busy working as a zoologist to become the vaunted warrior-hero-soldier that apparently makes a female character strong enough for you, Dissolve. Instead, she spends years subversively rescuing dragons from capture like a radical Greenpeace activist, and she is the one who leads the enormous dragon army into battle against Drago.
Even more significantly, while it's true that she doesn't get to do much in the third act, she doesn't have to. She doesn't have to because unlike 90 percent of other Hollywood films, HTTYD is a universe with more than one woman in it. And as a result, it gets to have a variety of women who do a variety of different things. Valka doesn't have to be an all-powerful warrior-soldier, because Astrid and Ruffnut are out there dumping flaming sulfur on the enemy and generally proving that women can be badasses on the battlefield. Valka proves that women can be badasses as activists and scientists and even, yes, as moms, too.
Even more significantly, while it's true that she doesn't get to do much in the third act, she doesn't have to. She doesn't have to because unlike 90 percent of other Hollywood films, HTTYD is a universe with more than one woman in it. And as a result, it gets to have a variety of women who do a variety of different things. Valka doesn't have to be an all-powerful warrior-soldier, because Astrid and Ruffnut are out there dumping flaming sulfur on the enemy and generally proving that women can be badasses on the battlefield. Valka proves that women can be badasses as activists and scientists and even, yes, as moms, too.
— Aja Romano rebutting the accusation that How to Train Your Dragon 2 is sexist
the accusation that How to Train Your Dragon 2 is sexistBritani Knight: Mission Statement of the Anti-Diva Army: We stand firm against the trivialization and degradation of women's wrestling. However, we further recognize that the sport has often trivialized itself, by elevating the untalented and the incompetent based solely on looks and charisma. As such, we seek to not only advocate for women's wrestling to the outside world, but to purify it from within.
Serena Deeb: My name...is Serena Deeb. I stand here today alongside Britani and Sofia because I believe in their mission. We have eliminated a talentless model by putting Nikki Bella on the injured list. We have taken out a woman content to rest on her laurels and charisma in destroying Melina last week. And tonight...we will be making a fresh new statement.
...The fashion changes that happened in the early 90s in the U.S., where women's business clothes became a lot more feminine in cut and colors, have definitely not happened in Japan – it's a choice between serious and severe, or cute and sexy, and not much in-between. In my mind, the women's business fashion evolution in the U.S. was a sign of women's progress in the workplace, where women had gained enough ground that they didn't feel they had to try to look like men anymore in order to be taken seriously.
Avoid overly "empowered" female characters. Empowerment doesn't mean she's terrible to men just for being men — it just means she’s not stepped on for being a woman.
— "How Not To Write Female Characters", a list on ImpishIdea
", a list on ImpishIdeaIt's the idea that a "good" or "realistic" female character has to be, in short, a man with breasts. She walks around armed to the teeth, hates men and the Patriarchy with a burning passion that easily turns violent, and generally suffers from a worse case of Testosterone Poisoning than the male members of the group. And god forbid she should be emotional, or get into romantic relationships (unless they're with other women!) or have any of the other concerns that real women deal with on a daily basis. (...) It's a pervasive disease in RPGs, and women are as likely to succumb to it as men dabbling in transgender roleplaying - if not more so!
— Beth Kinderman, "The Xena: Warrior Princess Syndrome"
It is perhaps too strong to call [Annie Oakley] a feminist, as she disliked bifurcated garments for women and worried about universal suffrage.
— David Huxley, "Lone Heroes and the Myth of the American West"
D. B. Platypus: Why is it that the female has to cook? As role models, you must be careful not to fall into gender stereotypes!
Amy: While I agree with you in principle, the simple fact is I'm the only one who knows how to cook. And I enjoy it!
D. B. [blows whistle] WHAT YOU LIKE IS UNIMPORTANT! You're a role model now.
D. B. [blows whistle] WHAT YOU LIKE IS UNIMPORTANT! You're a role model now.
— Sonic Boom, "Role Models"
Is it the 'strong independent woman' thing to do? No, but that is not who Sakura is. Yes, like Rin she is a character of great inner strength and will, probably more so as she has endured so much trauma and horror, but as you will read in a later character dive, not everyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Not everyone can 'handle it'. People need to be saved, and that doesn’t stop them from being good and capable people.
"I want every version of a woman and a man to be possible. I want women and men to be able to be full-time parents or full-time working people or any combination of the two. I want both to be able to do whatever they want sexually without being called names. I want them to be allowed to be weak and strong and happy and sad — human, basically. The fallacy in Hollywood is that if you're making a 'feminist' story, the woman kicks ass and wins. That's not feminist, that's macho. A movie about a weak, vulnerable woman can be feminist if it shows a real person that we can empathize with."
