What to do (alt titles crowner 3/12/12): Acceptable Feminine Goals

Okay, looks like "make an index" wins. I'll use Madrugada's suggestion as a base and do it within a day or so, assuming no last minute objections.

Oh, dang, I just discovered this trope and added a Troper Tales to it without realizing it was getting overhauled. I hope that's not an issue?

This doesn't appear to have been done yet.

Acceptable Feminine Ways?

Most of the tropes are not only considerd acceptable for a woman, a female character is more or less expected to show these traits. So I would prefer some other term then acceptable.

'They are not only acceptable but nearly required' — That's why they are the "Acceptable traits" — any others are somehow "unacceptable". It's a connotation thing rather than a strict definition thing.

edited 26th Sep '11 5:45:01 AM by Madrugada

Acceptable Feminity?

I think there should be an index, but I definitely think this trope belongs on it.

I'm going to rewrite it; a lot of the nastier comments (particularly the Unfortunate Implications bit) weren't part of the original description.

Expected Feminine Goals? I don't see why we should remove the examples, to be honest. It's a lot easier to have a borad decription than to make a trope for each and every possible way that it could manifest. This also seems to be one of those tropes that are used unconciouly, and the best way to see it is really through the big picture (a trope for tomboys who cares for their siblings or Action Girls who get married doesn't really mean that much until you see that they Action Girls who don't marry have some other trait) As for being negative, I think that if Real Women Never Wear Dresses could be tweaked to no be considered bitch bait, so could this one. How about just shortening the description to pointing out that most female character always have some sort of traditionally feminine trait? Or maybe as an extension of Real Women Never Wear Dresses, showing the situation of on one hand having a character being more than a Bad Ass and on the other creating a pattern that doesn't have a counterpart among male characters?

Whatever's done about this, there certainly should be a page for the trope where a female character's life goals have to involve family or nurturing somehow. The fact that there's also a contradictory stereotype doesn't mean it isn't a trope; stereotypes don't work logically that way - part of the unfortunate implications is that it's a no-win situation (female characters who don't want babies are seen as coldhearted bitches, and female characters who do want babies are seen as weak and betraying feminism). Pretty commonly they'll even combine, and you end up with the idea that good female characters have to be somehow feminine and masculine at the same time, instead of just picking whatever suits them personally.

We might consider changing Real Women Never Wear Dresses to an in-universe trope for cases where female characters who are traditionally feminine are seen as weak (currently it just amounts to Complaining About Fans You Don't Like), and just making a corresponding trope called Real Women Always Wear Dresses for the reverse.

edited 17th Oct '11 9:01:11 AM by dangerwaffle

I like that idea. It highlights the complexity of the issue, for one

Real Women Never Wear Dresses is a complete mess, and a lot of the examples are just complaining about people not liking a character for reasons they don't like (and, for some tropers, whitewashing those complaints into sexist nonsense). It really ought to be removed, I think, because of just how rarely it comes up in actual fiction: it's almost entirely a fandom trope.

EDIT: I'd also like to point out that since RWNWD is a fandom trope and AFG is almost entirely the domain of fiction writers, there's a fundamental difference, although the two do have a bit of a link. They draw the same conclusion, but come at it from different perspectives: writers see the feminine traits as being attractive, but the (likely female) audience sees it as yet another female character whose feminine traits are the roadblock to her keeping up with the rest of the cast. The views are on opposing sides, not hot and cold in the same breath.

As to this page, I edited the description; hopefully it's a bit better now. Female characters being required to have a nurturing/caregiving career is nothing new and I think does deserve a page of its own, rather than being relegated to an example-less index. Part of what TV Tropes represents is a resource for writers (and readers) to become more aware of them.

edited 18th Oct '11 1:49:18 PM by SevenDeadPineTrees

I think the fact that Real Women Never Wear Dresses comes up in this discussion at all shows how obtrusive it is. It's an audience-reaction trope that is mostly used to demonize unpopular opinions about female characters rather than bring attention to the tendency to show that femininity compromises the strength of a female character.

It's also got a certain amount of overlap with AFG and No Guy Wants an Amazon because the principle is the same. If it weren't for all the whiny bitching on RWNWD, we could lump them into each other because they revolve around the same idea: femininity is soft, and without it, a female character is too masculine to appeal to men.

edited 30th Oct '11 4:22:31 PM by PhantomMetisse

Maybe so. Though I think it needs its own discussion thread. Hang on...

Ah right. Well then. Let's keep on topic: what do do with this one?

edit: thread created.

edited 3rd Nov '11 6:15:26 PM by Mimimurlough

I don't quite know what about this trope needs fixing. The core description has been edited multiple times since the original complaint about it being negative and bitch-bait, and I think the current description is legit and as neutral as any description about gender-typing can be. People tend to think that any observation of gender-based trends are somehow instantly condemning of their favorite female characters and not the writers who support the stereotype, natch, but that points more to the validity of Real Women Never Wear Dresses than the invalidity of the in-universe examples of Acceptable Feminine Goals.

edited 1st Nov '11 8:16:46 PM by PhantomMetisse

I think No Guy Wants an Amazon is a similar but distinct idea, though.

They're all basically revolving around the same principle; No Guy Wants an Amazon is the reason lady characters need Acceptable Feminine Goals.

Okay this example annoys me slightly, owning a restaurant isn't a career goal. It's a property investment. If she is shown wanting to run the place then it would count as a carrer aspiration, but she isn't. It a classic example of rags to riches wishfullment, not a career goal.

edited 26th Dec '11 1:01:39 PM by joeyjojo

That seems needlessly nitpicky. She wants to own the restaurant as a source of income and her "I Want" song number shows her doing finishing touches on most of the food and supervising her kitchen staff, which is something a well-involved manager does. What would make the example better, do you think?

I conceded your point.

First option has a pretty good lead... when was this crowner started? It seems to lack a date stamp.

EDIT: Looks like it's been considered called since April?

edited 1st Jan '12 11:23:44 AM by ArcadesSabboth

I think we can call the crowner now.

That we can.

Perhaps Acceptable Femininity for name?