Too many female antagonists in my story?

In my Trilogy In Progress, A majority of the antagonists happen to be female. I have male villains, especially in the first story, who all prove to be Anti-Villains and redeem themselves. There is one male hero who does end up going rogue and becoming He Who Fights Monsters and there will also probably be an evil male General involved, but that's about it. The female villains, on the other hand, aren't Anti-Villains. Two of them betray the heroes, the Big Bad is a female Magnificent Bastard, and her partner is a women who runs the secret police.

Basically, the male antagonists are mostly Anti-Villains, while the female antagonists are all truly villainous. I do have a lot of female heroes, too, which my friends tell me will avoid any Unfortunate Implications about females being more evil than males, and I am also aware that this inverts tropes like High-Heel–Face Turn and The Dark Chick where the females are the minority among the antagonists and are more likely to turn good, which is what I was going for in the first place.

However, I am still worried about having Unfortunate Implications, and I am wondering, fellow Tropers: Would this be an issue? Should I add a female Anti-Villain and some more male villains? Or do you all think it'll be good the way it is? Give me your opinions and suggestions and I'll gladly listen.

edited 21st Jun '14 5:18:26 PM by Sibuna

Happy Holidays to everyone! Have a great end of the year, and an even better 2015- you all deserve it!

I say keep it the way it is. If its OK to have male villains and female anti-villains, the reverse is OK too.

Care less about feminists and their eventual reaction to the story, if you think the current gender balance is good, then keep it that way.

"And you must be Jonathan Joestar!" - Sue

I'd say that you're pretty good as long as you have a good amount of non villainous female characters who are diverse in character (that is have them be different enough from each other and that they are their own people with their own goals). Though it couldn't hurt to look at your villains and antivillains and maybe make sure the villains are properly human-as in they have their own goals and feel justified in what they do rather than doing things for the purpose of being a monster.

Don't worry about the gender balance - it's quality that counts. As long as you can make all the major players properly interesting, conflicted, memorable or just downright terrifying in their own ways, you'll do fine.

Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)

Most feminists are looking for women to be more represented in the media. Once the women in this story aren't all evil just because they're women and there's a few women on the good side too for a bit of balance, then most feminists would be quite happy with the premise.

I think it sounds fine, but like everything else, it does depend on the execution.

You guys are right. I thought over all the ways I had my female characters portrayed, and well, their characterizations range from Cloud Cuckoo Lander, to Guile Hero, to Magnificent Bastard to Blood Knight to everything in between. I try to make the genders arbitrary as well, having them only matter mostly when the Jerk Jock is making fun of his sister or the main Action Girl, and the only reason many are girls or vise versa is because I named a lot of secondary characters after my real life friends. They are just normal people who could have easily been male, but were instead females, with all the flaws and differences that come with just being people.

I believe the execution will be okay, even though the evil female leader usurps her Well-Intentioned Extremist father for power, only to eventually get replaced by her younger brother (In other words, the males seem to be the "better" leaders) which can be fixed by having it acknowledged that the girl did, at least, really make her country stronger and wealthier even if she harmed other countries to get there- meaning that she really did have good leadership skills, she merely abused them- and have the brother decide to rule with his love interest/the Guile Hero as his partner/wife/queen, so neither gender ends up being the "better leader".

edited 23rd Jun '14 2:59:42 PM by Sibuna

Happy Holidays to everyone! Have a great end of the year, and an even better 2015- you all deserve it!