Not Always: Always Female

Hmm, that ain't a bad notion, actually. I like Inherently Female as a trope name.

Following that tangent, the Inherently Female examples could also use another split, at least a soft one:

There is a difference between something like "Valkyries are inherently female by definition", "Mama Bear is a female trope that is similar to the male Papa Wolf trope" and Mary Sue is female only page, because it's male examples are listed at "Marty Stu".

The first two follow the same concept: remove the female gender, and the trope automatically gets twisted into something else, that is not the trope. Even Mama Bear, that has a male counterpart, provides reasons why the trope has a diferent general message in this form.

But the third, with Mary Sue and Marty Stu, is, practically a Typically Female trope, that's Gender-Inverted variants of Playing With were split into a separate page. It doesn't have anything unique to it, it is just Mary Sue + Gender-Inverted Trope

It's still useful to list them on an Inherently Female page, for practical purposes of this wiki, but saying that these tropes can't be male, is like saying that a Catchphrase can't be subverted, only averted for playing the "Subverted Catchphrase" trope straight.

In this case, Subverted Catchphrase is not really a trope just a page for subversions of a trope, and Marty Stu, or Distressed Dude, are also just pages for, Gender Inverted Examples of two other tropes.

edited 26th Apr '11 8:34:55 AM by EternalSeptember

Mayhaps we are overthinking?

Keep Always Female as the page where the examples absolutely have to be female (referring to the female sex and her characteristics). Split a page for Typically/Mostly/Whatever Female for those tropes which are usually female (cheerleader, vain sorceress, all women love shoes), but have no biological need to be female, but just usually are (girl in a box). On each index have a link to the other index with a brief disclaimer of the biological need/traditional placement that separates the two indexes, and that each list is only about half the picture for a complete and helpful list of Female tropes. Everybody wins?

Thank ya that's what I have been trying to say.

That's what's been debated for the past few tens of posts, actually.

It still doesn't take responsibility for the 2,686 inbounds in any more meaningful way than "whatever, they will eventually figure out that they are on the wrong page".

I would prefer Hershele Ostropoler's solution of keeping the old index as it is, or renamed as Female Tropes with Always Fmale as a redirect, and make new pages for both sub-variants, plus for my suggested other page for separate index for gender inversions.

It would look like this:

• Female Tropes (a.k.a Always Female) (for the two below combined)
  • Feminine Tropes (e.g.: Tsundere, Robot Girl, The Libby)
  • Inherently Female Tropes (e.g.: Sweater Girl, Joshikousei, Pregnant Badass)

• Male Tropes (a.k.a Always Male) (for the two below combined)
  • Masculine Tropes (e.g.: Gentleman Adventurer, Lady Killer In Love)
  • Inherently Male Tropes (e.g.: Perma-Stubble, Man in a Kilt)

• Gender Inverted Trope Counterparts (e.g.: Mama Bear - Papa Wolf, Mary Sue - Marty Stu, Hot Mom - Hot Dad)
• Unisex Tropes

The "Inherently" tropes would be those that's gender inversion logically doesn't happen, and "Counterparts" would be for those that's gender inversion is a different trope.

edited 28th Apr '11 10:30:01 AM by EternalSeptember

Or just make Always Female literally mean "Always", and make the new index for those traditionally female (same with male tropes).

Please, give some reason why it is a better idea to ignore the expectations of everyone who ever used the page, including the thousands of inbounds that we can't just replace, than to make new pages for both new concepts, and keep the page as it got popular?

We can even rename it and call it Female Tropes if the title bugs you so much, but it's clear that there is a built up expectation for that kind of index, that we shouldn't simply redirect to another, significantly different page, simply because that could be one of the appropriate titles for that one, and we couldn't bother giving it another one.

Because I think you might be begging the question of what people's expectations are.

I've always read the clear meaning of this trope to be Exactly What It Says on the Tin and assumed most people did the same. You read it the opposite way. I don't think either one of us can claim to know or represent "the expectations of everyone who ever used the page."

In a logical universe a trope labeled Always Female can't have any examples that are male.

Of course, the inbounds don't necessarily reflect that (is there any practical way to check?). In any case, since there are thousands of inbounds we ought to keep the name for something or other. But at the same time I think it's a good ide to separate the tropes that must be about women and the ones that are usually about women, that is, the ones that can't be about men*

Question. Does Mister Sea Horse mean Pregnant Badass isn't Always Female?

They would still have rare exceptions dealing with crossdressing and biological screwing around, with Mister Seahorse would fall under.

edited 28th Apr '11 6:46:46 PM by DragonQuestZ

Crowner's been up more than five days, I don't see the standings changing anytime soon. Note, though, that ending the crowner now means getting the result I want.

We will need a second crowner anyways, we only voted for having a Hard split.

But since that, several possibilities came up, about the specific ways of hard splitting.

• We can follow yous suggestion of keeping the current page as the supertope it is, and only rename it to Female Tropes, and create the two new sub-indexes.

• We can rename and rework Always Female into Inherently Female Tropes, and split off it's other half from it.

• We can rename and rework Always Female into Feminine Tropes, and split off it's other half from it.

• Meanwhile, we may differentiate Gender Inverted Trope Counterparts From Inherently Female Tropes as I suggested, or lump them together.

edited 30th Apr '11 3:26:33 AM by EternalSeptember

For the record, the numbers right now stand at:

+17 (yeas:20 nays:3) 6.67 : 1 Hard split

+2 (yeas:8 nays:6) 1.33 : 1 Soft split

I'm really in favor of the outline given on Thursday the 28th. Solves a lot of pesky nit-picking issues, keeps the index both useful and accurate, and it is a very simple solution to the problem.

OK, it's been a week since the last numbers check on the crowner and it hasn't changed appreciably (It's now +18 [21-3; 7 : 1] in favor of a hard split instead of 17-2) I'm locking the crowner and calling this one decided.

Now we need to actually do the work.

edited 5th May '11 7:33:04 AM by Madrugada

As I understand the situation:

• Tropes currently on Always Female are or should be all character types.
• They come in four flavors
  1. It is scientifically impossible for the character described in the trope to be male in a work set among humans in a Like Reality, Unless Noted universe.
  2. It is definitionally impossible for the character to be male, because the Spear Counterpart is a separate trope.
  3. It is only a trope is the character is female, because those characteristics applied to a man is People Sit On Chairs.
  4. It is culturally unlikely for the character to be male, at least in the time and place the work is written or set.
• We want to group 1 and 2 together, and put 4 in a different category, and I can see an argument for putting 3 in that category but my inclination is to put it with 1&2.

For continuity of external links I reiterate the suggestion that we keep Always Female as the Super-Trope or a redirect to the Super-Trope.

edited 5th May '11 8:11:34 AM by HersheleOstropoler

Wow that is way over thinking it. Really there are only two maybe three here.

• Mostly Female where a trope can have the rare male example (if it doesn't that's fine as long as it can)
• Always Female where outside of crossdressing or sex change there can't be a male example.

We coulf make a Gender Flipped Tropes index where we have two tropes genderflipped and just index them together as a pair.

And what about the supertrope that you suggested earlier? It would be important to preserve it in some way, because even though the current one is confusingly used for multiple subtropes, there is obvious demand for a page of all female tropes as they are listed now.

I don't think that 1 and 2 should be grouped together, though I think that 1 and 3 definitely should be.

Gender Inverted Trope Counterparts are a categorically different concept from the other three.

For the record, a Gender Flip and Gender-Inverted Trope are two different things.

Overthinking? Really? Shocked.

The Super-Trope is either Always Female or Female Tropes with Always Female as a redirect.

I'm more inclined to put 2 and 3 together than 1 and 3, but I think 1 and 2 belong together — they have in common that an example who is male (in a Like Reality, Unless Noted universe) is flat-out wrong, as opposed to 4, where it's simply an unusual case.

The thing is, that while the pages of that 2nd category, like Mary Sue, or Damsel in Distress, technically don't include male examples, in their logic, they are closer to the 4th category than to the first.

Damsel in Distress, as a trope, is only mostly female, in the same way as Girl in the Tower is. It is a concept mostly associated with women, but it can happen with men. It's just our tvtropes page, that happens to be split into that and Distressed Dude, but the latter is practically a Playing With - Gender-Inverted subpage of the main trope, that's only unique elemet is the act of the gender inversion.

So, if they are close to both other categories based on different reasons, (technically to Literally Always Female, and tropologically to Culturally Female, they should only be listed together on the supertrope, but on the specific subpages, split apart from both.

I'm inclining to the argument that there are two classes here, one with two subclasses itself:

• Tropes which are physically limited to females — that are literally always female.
• Tropes which are really only "Usually Female";
  • those that have Spear Counterparts, where a male in the same position is typically handled somewhat differently,
  • those that don't have Spear Counterparts, but which are very rarely applied to male characters.

, Ok, put that way I guess I can see that.

And, just to add an opinion, I don't think that the final product should be only character types. All Women Love Shoes, All Women Are Prudes, All Women Are Lustful, Battle Ballgown, Beautiful All Along, Career Versus Man, Combat Stilettos, Girls Love Stuffed Animals, Girl's Night Out Episode, Little Girls Kick Shins, My Biological Clock Is Ticking, Opera Gloves, Pimped-Out Dress, and Victoria's Secret Compartment to name a few are (at a glance) not character types, but are still always female' or 'mostly female', just as the index is labeled. Either the index should include things other than just'' character types, or it should be labeled Always Female Character Types and Mostly Female Character Types.

Now, it's entirely possible a decision has been made on this and I'm just missing it on readthrough—there just seems to be discussion of it above, and what the index finally includes is an important issue to have decided.

edited 6th May '11 9:57:18 AM by ElaineRose