Gender and the Bechdel Test in your work

Test fail.

In my case, it's most likely due to the smaller number of female characters, with an even smaller number of them in the foreground, and some of those being like the author and spending time mostly with dudes just by nature.

Not discounting the test, though. While it is about minutiae, which does annoy me like all of those unofficial minutiae-guidelines writers like to make for themselves, a world where the only conversations worth noting either involve a man or are about one is kind of off. I'll keep this in mind; like someone said, the test is best used as a starting point for more abstract ideas.

It depends on the time period and setting, too. If you're writing in a time and place when men and women were expected to do very different things, and your protagonist is a man, you naturally won't see a whole lot of women without veering too much from the story at hand.

Personally I think it's more important to show women in situations where being a woman is irrelevant.

edited 30th Apr '11 4:51:18 PM by annebeeche

Cold Wizard of Woodenloo and Kira Is Justice...failed. If only I had wrote more of both works, I might've gotten a chance to pass it. It just that I didn't find a plot-relevant oppertunity to get to females to talk to each other.

@annebeeche: Good point—how realistic not passing the test feels does depend on the typical roles of women in context. In my story's, said roles are admittedly a lot greater than those for the women in the plot; guess I was just thinking of that.

...

I...I honestly don't know if I pass the test...

See, my story fails because I have a male protagonist, don't have omniscient narration, and try to avoid the "overhearing conversations" cliche.

As was brought up in the other thread, the test doesn't actually say only woman can be in the conversation. It's implied, and I think that's what it intended, but technically if you have a group discussing battle plans and two women are active participants in that conversation, it passes.

Hm. For this fic I'm currently working on:

• At least two female characters
• Who speak to each other
• About something other than a man/men/how to attract men/romance

...test pass.

NOW.

• At least two female characters
• Who speak to each other
• About something other than Pokemon

...lemme get back to ya.

I think my short story for class passes. After the two women in the story who meet briefly discuss Borghild's poor treatment of a certain Scyld Scefing, they discuss how Borghild's going to be left in the 21st century forever.

None of my works pass. I have few female main characters.

But really, just saying they have to talk about something other than 'men' isn't helpful. They could have an utterly stereotypical conversation about shoes, or something else non-plot relevant, and it would still make the work pass.

It ought to be, do the female characters have meaningful conversations with each other.

My comics only pass through sheer number of characters - not because of proportions. Of approximately 700 characters I have listed, only about 90 are female vs. roughly 600 male characters (there's a small number who don't count as male or female). I've never had much problem (in other works) avoiding The Smurfette Principle, so I think there's two main reasons for this:

• The comics began as a collaborative effort with several people I knew, all of whom were male. This accounts for why the "Nerds" - the core group of sixteen characters - are all male: they're based off, or more accurately just named after these people.
• It's a Stick-Figure Comic, and for a long time I wasn't quite sure how to draw female stick figures, which is why most of the female characters aren't human (and thus can be drawn differently from the norm).

Not something I would do now, but I at least have the consolation that I began them back in 2003, when my writing skills overall were somewhat worse than now.

My other works all pass easily, though.

edited 30th Apr '11 8:28:55 PM by nrjxll

Well, the first conversation of my story passes the Bechdel test — the protagonist is contacted in her dreams by a sorceress, who explains that she has a far more interesting past than she knows about. Funnily enough, the reverse takes a while to be done: it's when Frank and Sigmund finally meet again.

Still, the Bechdel test is hardly of much significance... porn intended for a male audience frequently passes, for some reason.

edited 30th Apr '11 8:43:46 PM by KillerClowns

When I write female characters, I don't factor in gender as a personality trait. Kind, laid back, stoic, snarky, and really laid back are one each of the traits applied to characters whose attributes include female, male, male, female, and male respectively. Unfortunately, that's also my entire main cast, and the main character is a guy. Given that I'm writing a webcomic that'll release 1 page a week, I have absolutely no time to spend on anything that isn't directly related to the plot. As of approximately 80 pages out of an estimated 300, it has yet to pass the bechdel test. It does pass reverse bechdel and smurfette, though.

Artificial Rights barely passes as there is a conversation where three girls and the male protagonist are talking about the ship that they're in. It would be an outright pass there in my opinion if it weren't for the fact that the BunnyEarsLawyer keeps insisting that the ship is male and talking about it as if it were alive. None of the women are love interests though, and most of the women that appear in this story are scientists or engineers of some sort, and the same can be said for the men in the story.

edited 30th Apr '11 9:25:22 PM by Cresneta

Let me put it this way — my current project has about 50k dedicated to it already, and in none of that does it ever really pass the test. Which is odd, because there's a good even mix of men and women, only one of them really qualifies as The Chick, and none of them really talk about men/dating… well, ever. Even the one actually dating the MC. They just never end up talking to each other, and least in anything other than trivial "could you pass the salt?" ways.

I think the main problem — if it can be called that — is that the story is almost completely centered around the male MC, and that literally none of the women are friends with each other. It makes it harder than it should to pass the test without the conversation in question sounding forced or a tad contrived.

On the flip side, it passes the reverse test in chapter one about five times. Which is… oddly depressing, now that I think about it. And it really shouldn't be, because most of the time I have the exact opposite problem of having a surplus of multi-dimensional women in my stories and no men.

In my first novel duet

Passes both the original and the reverse, I'd say.

In my second novel duet

Probably also passes the original and reverse. I've written maybe one scene, so.

edited 1st May '11 12:53:52 PM by Leradny

Actually, Kira Is Justice may pass the test, if talking about a person who they don't know the gender of.

^yeah I think that would.

I think what it means by 'talking about men" is talking about romance and men or boyfriend problems or something. Romance.

If they're talking about something plot important that doesn't really involve romance then it counts even if it involves a male character.

My cynical Genre Buster passes by having them talk about pop culture and Careers. Even though both characters are main characters have little influence over the plot, granted this also means they're never Damsels in Distress either. It also passes the reverse.

My idealistic Cyber-Fantasy Queer Romance fails it, hard for obvious reasons. It passes the reverse for obvious reasons.

edited 1st May '11 3:03:14 PM by Vyctorian

I pass it, but I don't see how it's impressive. Sure I have it "easier" because my two main protagonists are women, but that's a silly way to look at it. Unless it's a totally male dominated setting (prison? military?) I don't know how you can fail it.

Honestly, as far as gender and sexism goes I think it was much more difficult for me to have male protagonists who, in a story with the option to fight/possibility of violence, deigned not to. My friend and I sat down once and tried to think of stories which pulled this off and all we could think of were Monster and To Kill A Mockingbird. It's like some kind of reversed-Bechdel test I guess!

@Gaiseric: I don't know, a lack of omniscient narration combined with a male protagonist?

edited 1st May '11 3:18:56 PM by PDown

Mine passes

Ace is a main character. She’s female, and when she’s not working she lives with he mother and very young female cousin. She also has at least two female friends. She is uncomfortable w/ romance.

Her friend Ghost is also a main character he has a male best friend, and a male apprentice.

In my main work, there are females, but they consist almost entirely of wives, daughters, sisters, or family members of more plot-important males. I personally don't care to write or read about romance, but I can't exactly cut them out because it would just be weirder for the males to not be married and unrealistic for all twenty-odd of them to have only sons.

As for conversations... I would prefer that the conversations be at least somewhat plot-important, and the females don't play much of plot-important role besides fleshing out the scenery. So it's not like they have substantial conversations with or that focus on males, it's more like they aren't shown having substantial conversations at all.

I guess I fail the test, then. Like I care that much, 'cause I don't care about romance or love interests.

edited 1st May '11 6:25:37 PM by CrystalGlacia

Yeah, I think when you have a male, tight POV in Boys' Love genre with a Walking the Earth plot where major characters besides the two Official Couple protagonists are one-shot characters, this can be difficult.

edited 1st May '11 7:02:56 PM by OhSoIntoCats

Crystal Glacia: Just out of curiosity I'd like to know why don't you have any plot important females. It sounds a little like you think women are only there to be related to male protagonists or love interests, that cutting out romance means cutting out women entirely. That more than anything means that yes, you do fail.

edited 1st May '11 7:24:47 PM by Leradny