"Men With Boobs" Effect in Fiction

... What's different about the 'men with boobs' label? It is kind of an unfortunate name, but it's just a trend that some people have noticed in fiction. Why doesn't it count as a valid question to ask about gender stereotypes? What's different about it?

Because it's criticism based on the supposed existence of gender stereotypes. It's saying that too many "strong" female characters have "masculine" traits - indeed, that they are just superficially female men - and that this is a bad thing. The idea that one cannot have a "strong" female character with "feminine" traits certainly needs to be fought, but the "men with boobs" concept is really just reversing it.

edited 15th Jul '12 6:11:01 PM by nrjxll

"Men with boobs" is short for "they act just like men, even though they're biologically female, i.e. have boobs". By using that phrase, you're suggesting that there really is such a thing as "acting like a man", that certain behaviors are inherent to the male condition, rather than simply being expected of men by society, and that a woman who behaves the same way is somehow less of a woman. You don't see how that's sexist?

edited 15th Jul '12 6:12:21 PM by RavenWilder

I can see how it could be sexist, yeah. But I think, the people complaining about 'men with boobs' aren't saying 'a woman who behaves like a man is less of a woman'.

I mean, the characters are obviously being designed this way for a reason. What would that reason be? Is it because the authors/creators genuinely think that femininity is weakness? Is it because they think their male audience won't be able to identify with a feminine person?

The idea I got from the articles I've seen complaining about 'men with boobs' is that. The critics think that the characters are being written the way they are because of a sexist reasoning, and that's why they're criticising it. It's not because they think that traditionally masculine women are 'less of a woman'.

I've read plenty of works that contain "men with boobs;" plenty that have "women with penises" as well (and I don't mean lestai stuff, either). Seriously, the more female writers I read the more I realize that, while there are a lot of great female writers out there, there are also a whole, whole lot who either can't write a male character that feels genuine or, which is possibly more likely, simply have no interest in doing so...

Hating "femininity" isn't sexist, though. I'd say it's close-minded, but to be sexist they'd have to then say that one gender is more "feminine" than the other. So long as they approve of "masculine" behavior and disapprove of "feminine" behavior without regard for the gender of the person expressing it, then that's not sexism.

I mean, let's say someone really dislikes the religion of Islam, thinks a lot of its tenents are horrible, and would never create a heroic character who believes in it. Does that make them racist? Afterall, people often associate Islam with the Arabic people, so does disliking Islam make them anti-Arabic? What if they've written stories with heroic Arab protagonists who weren't Muslim?

edited 15th Jul '12 11:05:21 PM by RavenWilder

It wouldn't make them racist as such, but it certainly would still be a form of intolerance/bigotry. In that sense, I agree with Loni Jay - I just don't agree that concerns about this kind of thing are the real core of the "men with boobs" idea.

I believe it is sexist, in a way. Because for all the talk about how masculinity and femininity are just a social construct (I know that they are, so I don't need another lecture on why they are, thanks), large portions of humanity haven't got that memo yet. And so they treat masculinity/femininity as being something that usually is tied to your physical sex, and you have to bear that in mind when you're discussing social trends. It's a historical thing and it's still hanging around. It's possible for the sexist reasoning to still be intact now, even though the people who care enough to talk about this sort of thing are aware that the underlying assumption is false.

Yes, many people think your gender determines your behavior, but if someone creates a "man with boobs" character, then that is evidence that they do not. *

It's not a dichotomy, where you either believe biological sex and gender are inextricably tied to each other, or that there is no such thing as masculinity/femininity.

So, let's say the creators have enough awareness to know that "Not all women are delicate, non-violent creatures who love pink, fashion, babies and talking about their emotions". But not enough awareness to know that "There actually isn't such a thing as in-born gender roles".

They still associate all of those things with women. They just acknowledge that not all women like them.

'Tomboys' and girls who are 'one of the lads' are only remarkable because they're a deviation from the social norms. Otherwise they wouldn't really exist, they would just be regular women. Their existence in fiction doesn't actually say much about the creator's views on gender roles.

edited 16th Jul '12 12:59:56 AM by LoniJay

Well, do to society's expectations influencing how people behave, women are more likely to have those traits, so that association isn't really wrong. So long as it's clear they know women aren't pre-determined to have those traits, I say we're good.

Well, it's certainly an improvement on the way things were, and on the whole I do agree that women being allowed to be exactly the same as man is a positive thing.

But if by 'we're good' you mean that there is no longer an issue and therefore we should stop talking about it, I have to disagree. For one thing, we could look at why a 'man with boobs' is so much more socially acceptable than a 'woman with a penis' is. I don't think we can really say this issue is solved until men can act in identical ways to traditional women without being viewed as less of a man.

I think that day will be a long day in coming, but it's not going to get any closer if gender egalitarians rest on their laurels.

Makes sense to me.

I have a feeling that I'm not getting my opinion across very well here. It's kind of hard to articulate. Please bear with me while I try again.

If game makers had arrived at the character type of 'Woman with lots of Traditionally Male Traits and No Female Ones' in a vacuum, that would be fine. But they didn't. They came up with it at the end of a long history of sexism in our culture.

Why do we have this idea that displaying your emotions and caring about relationships (and other traits in that vein) are weak and not desirable in strong, pro-active characters? Did we as a culture come up with that idea for no reason, picking traits totally at random?

Do we (as a society) devalue those traits just because we don't like them? Or do we devalue them because they are associated with women?

This is the reason why the 'men with boobs' character type can be seen as sexist against women. It has its roots in a devaluation of things associated with women. The fact that they aren't actually 'female' things doesn't matter - culture used to associate them with women, and that's the reason we don't want them in our action heroes.

Society's disfavor towards "feminine" traits came to be because of sexism against women. However, as "men with boobs" characters indicate, disliking "femininity" has now become its own social meme, able to exist independently of sexism, so you can't use someone's dislike of "feminine" attributes as evidence that they're a sexist. It's like how the USA was created by slaughtering and conquering American Aborigines, but nowadays plenty of people like and support the USA without approving of the aforementioned slaughter/conquest.

OK. That's a fair criticism of the idea.

Now, all that said, I do think the idea that people shouldn't display stereotypically "feminine" emotions/behavior is bollocks.

However, it seems like a lot of the stories where "men with boobs" characters turn up are action/adventure stories, or at least stories where a fair bit of violence takes place. And since, historically, men are usually the ones sent to fight wars and do other violent crap, a lot of the traits most useful for handling yourself in a violent situation have been labeled "masculine", while the traits least useful in such situations have mostly been labeled "feminine".

edited 16th Jul '12 2:38:13 AM by RavenWilder

There are a few other things that I think need pointing out.

First, you are by your tact admission via the use of past tense, concerning yourself with things that may not in fact be relevant to the modern era.

Second, you are rejecting out of hand at least a few less-sinister explanations, starting with a poor understanding of the forces at work or simply "hey this would be cool" and working on up to a genuine, if overcorrective, swing to a feminist viewpoint.

Third and most serious: Many of the traits we regard as strong are, irrelevant to their being assigned to a gender, ones with simple survival value. Anyone who can take a bullet and not pass out is significantly more likely to be able to survive it. Anyone capable of masking their fears and their tears and maintaining an aura of control and optimism will be a more effective leader. What gender we assigned them to doesn't change the fact that they will be valuable to anyone. This means that a lot of the time the accusation of "men with boobs" means they created a character who could actually do this stuff, gender is incidental, and now they're being castigated for sexism.

I'd personally ask, whether I should be sure that a strong feminine female character will be greeted with acceptance. So far I doubt that; I am pretty sure somebody'll complain that it's sexist, as a woman being feminine is clearly forced or brainwashed into that role by the patriarchal society. Hmph. Perhaps one can't avoid all of the accusations.

Yesss

I agree I'm so tired of that.

Also what annoys me is when you have a series with a good amount of females who are action girls and ONE girl who isn't, and the fans jump on the one non-action character's case saying she's horribly sexist for not being an action girl like the others.

I mean my word, heaven forbid ONE girl not be an action girl right?

I understand annoyance when there's one female character and she's a damsel in distress or a load on the group. But if you have seven girls there's nothing wrong with having one who does something other than fight in the front-lines.

I'm sorta coming in late here and I did try to read the whole thread...

But wasn't the main general core of complaint of "men with boobs" the idea that authors who originally would have wrote their characters as males simply switched the sex and made them female with no other thought? That is, whether or not it was a good idea to have them as female or have it relevant was never considered, so the perspective of the author is "I have someone female in what is a traditionally male role, I'm progressive" but the reaction is "You didn't actually put any thought into this and just randomly switched someone to being female". So whether it's a good depiction or good role model is completely coincidental.

However, the problem itself is tricky because one shouldn't write a character "as female" either. There seems to be a rather arbitrary nature to what should be "feminine" and what should not be "feminine". Plus, if I were to write a female super soldier, they're probably going to act very "guy-like" because well, the character is a super soldier. Real soldiers don't wear dresses.

edited 16th Jul '12 11:55:34 AM by breadloaf

I think I covered this before in another strong female character thread but there are plenty of ways to make women act like women without being derogatory OR 'men with boobs'. It's about approach really. One of the consistent aspects of society is that men and women typically handle situations differently. Like anything there is a good and bad way of handling things. There are plenty of male stereotypes out there as well as females ones.

The brand of testosterone filled bull headed bravado is a good example of an annoying guy. The weepy over emotional and EXTREMELY irrational is a good example of an annoying girl. There's a difference between being brave and being a lemming. Women tend to take a more personal stance to problem solving where men tend to rely on cold hard logic. I will risk getting flamed in saying this... but it's true. Both are valid approaches to problem solving and both have fault in doing the extreme.

I rarely step out of my shoes (instinctively) to see what the other party thinks beyond what is the 'rational' action. The reason why this is so important is because HUMANS aren't rational very often. This makes the 'female' problem solving process a better approach a lot of the time.

Now what prevents a character from being a moron (male or female) is being able to stop and realize the other approach is needed some times.

Now before you break out the torches. I'm not saying this is 100% accurate. But it's subtle differences LIKE this that define a feminine good character from a masculine good character. Think of male characters that act particularly sensitive and watch them get stamped as sissies. Think of how a woman that is excessively crude and talks bluntly about sexual activities as a masculine trait without it turning them into a man with boobs.

These people exist. You can just look around and see them everyday.

I don't mind thread necromancy, but I find it very amusing that someone on the bottom of the first page basically called me sexist. I'm not an uber-feminist and this isn't the feminist Olympics or anything like that, but I'm very vocal and academically well-read on the subject of gender norms and sexual politics in fiction. This reminds me of a Jewish filmmaker being called an anti-Semite when he was making a documentary about antisemitism.

But I digress.

Loni Jay has brought up some excellent points. It stands to be said that characterization remains at the forefront of good storytelling along with pacing, coherence and the plausibility of the world you have established for your characters and their central conflict. Consistency and plausibility are highly important in establishing and identifying a character in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. Two problems I see in the "men with boobs" device being employed by writers are the following:

• The masculine traits or feminine traits are inconsistent or incongruous with the character.

• The writer either fails to give the character plausible weaknesses, or he or she fails to give them weaknesses in general.

Going back to video games, the problem I have with many of these female characters is that we aren't really fleshing these characters out as what one would call a multi-dimensional human being. I have this issue with both male characters and female characters who don't provide a compelling backdrop from commentary on the human condition. The gaming industry has a notorious fixation on bad storytelling, and the pigeonholed gender norms that are portrayed in video games are one of the many co-factors in that poor storytelling. I honestly didn't bat an eyebrow with so-called memorable characters were killed off in Modern Warfare because I didn't find myself drawn to their personal and ideological struggles. They didn't feel like complete people to me.

In the fourth Metal Gear Solid, Snake and Otacon are taking care of a little girl named Sunny. Some people like to crack jokes about the idea of two men raising a little girl, but I found that a bit more believable and true to the story because these characters have greater depth than, say, some of the guys in Gears of War. Even though Naomi later acts as a sort of temporary mother figure, Snake and Otacon at least attempt to connect with Sunny on a meaningful level, and the fact that they are men is rarely if ever explicitly stated to be a barrier to that attempt. In fact, they stumble around the idea of parenting much more because Snake is a disillusioned professional killer, and Otacon is an introverted shut-in with a persecution complex. Snake is particularly emblematic of the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder, and his moments of emotional fatigue are an expected and welcomed weakness. Kojima's not a perfect storyteller, but I sympathize with Snake as a male character with realistic emotional flaws because it was consistent with his character, that characterization being a world-weary war veteran who has repeatedly received the tremendous burden of saving the world. Cooperation and creativity are often associated with femininity, and Snake actually grows as a character when he adopts these traits while retaining the traditionally masculine traits of leadership, action and decisiveness. He's not without glaring flaws, but I enjoyed him much more as a person because these gender values were incidentally harmonized.

The death and combat take their toll on him in a refreshingly agonizing fashion, and it almost appears that Kojima is deconstructing the macho war hero archetype that still besieges a good deal of fiction. This was a successful demonstration of the strengths and weaknesses of a traditional masculine value and the consequences of upholding that value by way of patriotism, state-sponsored violence and psychological fragility.

Now, my problem with Samus is that her traits in Other M are inconsistent with her characterization in the past. As other game critics have aptly noted, her emotional breakdowns are less convincing in the latest installment because we have come to know her as a fearsome bounty hunter. Maybe all of that combat is finally coming back to haunt her after years of repression? Sure, I guess, but I kind of have to call bullshit on that theory because Samus has encountered and defeated Ridley so many times that it really shouldn't phase her that much. This betrays our understanding of human psychology and, more importantly, it betrays our understanding of Samus as a character.

The skin-tight zero suit, the long, blonde hair, the curvaceous body...that doesn't really detract from her character. Her appearance is secondary to how she behaves as a person in the story, and whether you guys like it or not, we carry specific assumptions about human nature with us when we enter the world the author has created for us. Even judging Other M on its own merits (i.e. not comparing it to the previous games), Samus's reactions - feminine or otherwise - don't line up with her training, her background and the mannerisms that would come with those collected experiences. I don't care if she's wearing a dress and three layers of makeup. What I strongly take issue with is how one of the most famous bounty hunters in the galaxy who has faced terrifying monsters on countless planets turns into a whimpering mess, gender be damned. Comparing Snake to Samus, this is a fault of characterization, and gender roles are really just along for the ride.

Edit: For the record, I'm not suggesting that Samus isn't allowed to be afraid or emotionally scarred, but if this is an essential part of her characterization, the writers need to carefully and thoughtfully set up that personality trait enough to make it authentic. I can swallow Snake's trauma more than that of Samus because the story sets up a backdrop for Snake's motivations as well as making PTSD a critical theme of the series. I also don't think Other M is a terrible game, but it was disappointing to see Samus not living up to her mythology the way Snake arguably has. And there are fans who will say the opposite. Everyone is a critic.

What really grinds me is the lack of sexuality in many stories. You don't have to agree with me, and if you think I'm being sexist, that's your problem, not mine. I like my stories to be at least slightly erotic, and I find it implausible for sexuality to not appear at least in passing among the cast of characters. Not sexual intercourse per se, but actual demonstrations of human intimacy such as a romantic interest, dating, affairs, divorce, masturbation, impotence - something that reminds us that these are real people with feelings, desires and a basic comprehension of intimacy at an adult level. I hardly find asexual characters convincing, and what strikes me as odd with females who incorporate a grocery list of masculine traits is a strange absence of intimacy with other characters or intimacy with themselves.

To echo breadloaf, "men with boobs" isn't a bad concept in and of itself, but it is often used very clumsily by writers who have given little thought to what cultural and social values a character is likely to have in the world they've created.

Now look. If you want to write an idealistic egalitarian universe where sexism and rigidly defined gender norms don't exist, more power to you. But to amend Loni's thoughts on the subject, an important part of successful storytelling is to establish meaningful commentary on the consequences of having societies like this. Kaschei once said something about fiction that I still find truthful:

"No, I'm not calling sexual harassment of a man impossible. Rather, it triggers different issues than the sexual harassment of a woman, which is common and, in certain positions and communities, expected."

"Unless you're writing about a world in which gender roles are absent, you cannot take men and women as social equals whose actions and reactions are entirely divorced from the ideologies of the superstructure. A bisexual man, for example, is going to have a far shittier time finding acceptance than a bisexual woman; and a woman who abandons her child will be much less sympathetic than a man would be, because fathers walking out has been normalized in many societies."

Again, if you want to create a world where these values don't exist, please do so, but you have to work very hard to make it successful. I live in a world where sexism, racism and homophobia are the reality. If you want me to engage your fictional universe, don't whine because I'm not ready to abandon the reality I know. This, to me, is the basis for the Space Whale Aesop. I don't have a problem with female characters who fight and snarl, but I have a big damn problem when those characters don't exhibit some degree of moral, sexual or emotional regard for their actions, their beliefs, and their motivations for addressing the story's central conflict.

edited 25th Jul '12 9:44:24 PM by Aprilla

I do think it's worth noting that there's a substantial difference between an inconsistent character and hypocritical character.

I'll be honest. Everyone has some form of masculinity and femininity, just as how everyone has both estrogen and testosterone. I really don't think characters should be measured by how masculine or feminine they are, because I find it self-destructive to associate gender roles or personality traits solely based on how masculine or feminine they are.