Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder You Know That Show... Trope Launch Pad Wishlist Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy
Go Ad-Free Report Bug
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Gender Dynamics Index

Go To

This index compiles tropes that illustrate how gender is used in fiction.

Male and female characters are subject to different forms of characterization and they are exploited as plot devices in different ways. One overarching way is the active-male/passive-female dichotomy. Women are judged more by their passive attributes and men by their actions. Within that dynamic is a sub-dynamic in which women's interior world of emotional reactions is expected to exert more of an influence on the actions of others than men's interior world.

Another way to look at it is this: female characters are defined by the passive value that others give them, male characters are defined by their actions, usually to protect or win that which they find valuable. Female characters have passive value but they don't create it while male characters don't have passive value so they must create active value. Female characters can be exploited for their passive value and male characters are expendable if they fail to create their own value by advancing the plot through their actions.

This index is divided into five sections:

  • Gender Dynamic Metatropes: Illustrating the underlying dynamic in the characterization of male and female characters that give rise to many Double Standards.
  • Female Tropes: How the Gender Dynamic Metatropes manifest for female characters.
  • Male Tropes: How the Gender Dynamic Metatropes manifest for male characters.
  • Contrasts: Direct contrasts between Always Female and Always Male Tropes that illustrate gender dynamics.
  • In Real Life: Research that illustrates aspects of Gender Dynamics. (Acceptable: studies on double standards in how we view men and women or media that illustrates a double standard. Unacceptable: Political writings aiming to use evidence of double standards to advance an agenda.)

This index is not for complaining about Double Standards, arguing which gender has it worse note , or going on wild tangents about what these tropes could be implying. This index is about observations of the use of gender in fiction. We'd like to see positive changes, ie. more balance in the portrayal of male and female characters, but debates on the morality of the use of gender in fiction don't belong here. If you want to add discussion of the effects of these tropes in real life, be moderate, consider both sides of the equation and be brief. If you disagree with anything on this page, take it to the discussion page to avoid natter.

Some tropes end up in both the male and female categories; this is due to the reinforcing nature of misandry and misogyny. Where there's one there is usually the other as well. Also, when adding an example to this page, keep in mind how it reflects and illustrates the dynamics listed—don't just add it because it's annoying, stupid, or sinister. (That's what the Unfortunate Implications and Double Standard pages are for.) Please avoid implicating a gender or group as responsible for these dynamics as well; they're dynamics, everyone is responsible for maintaining them, from primary caregivers of children to media moguls to politicians to social activists promoting them while attempting to correct them.

    open/close all folders 

Gender Dynamic Metatropes

These metatropes underlie most of the Double Standards regarding male and female characterization in media.
    Gender Dynamic Metatropes 

Female Tropes

As a rule in fiction, the default assumption is that Women Are Delicate. Used as plot devices and story trappings, female characters tend to be used as Fanservice, to provide motivation for other characters, a way of generating a feeling of horror in the audience and as a source of in story emotional reactions to events. In terms of characterization, female characters tend to be characterized by their relationships to other characters and by their passive attributes, and tend to exhibit more passive emotions.

Overall there are four categories to how women are portrayed in fiction: Objectified, Reactive, Relational and Motivational.

See also the index Acceptable Feminine Goals and Traits.

    Objectified 
Objectification of female characters involves reducing women's value down to their physical sex or other passive attributes at the expense of focusing on and giving plot-significant weight to their actions. Sometimes this is obvious, such as in fanservice aimed at men, and sometimes it's less obvious, such as the phrase 'women and children first'. In that case what makes the women singled out and valued for special protection is their sex, ignoring the existence of vulnerable civilian men or female combatants.

Female characters are often judged harshly on their lack of passive value. Passive value can be either physical beauty and/or helplessness and vulnerability. And women who refuse to embody these traits are often portrayed as lesbians or man-haters (despite the fact that women who wish to avoid the objectification/actification dynamic might be doing so for its negative effects on men just as much as its negative effects on women).

  • Abhorrent Admirer: Being average or ugly is inexcusable for a woman. Ridiculing her for her failure at being properly feminine is perfectly justified.
  • The Baroness: Of the "Rosa Klebb" type. Only physically unattractive and sexually unavailable villainesses are treated as serious threats, again for their passive attributes rather than their effective acts. Double points if they're also lesbians.
  • Brawn Hilda: Physically strong women are usually mannish, unfeminine, ugly, and Played for Laughs. Balanced out by the Amazonian Beauty, but since the woman is conventionally beautiful to begin with, it's a Broken Aesop.
  • Death by Disfigurement: Almost always female, since losing one's beauty is a death sentence for female characters.
  • Hollywood Old: Old women (ie past 50) are sexually undesirable thus have lost all intrinsic passive value they could have had. They can sometimes play to the relational part of the dynamics but almost always as a Disposable Woman, proving one more time that old age is a female character's doom.
  • Lesbian Vampire: Same deal as above, with the added benefit of being inherently evil.
  • Old Maid: It's shameful to be an old, unmarried woman.
  • Psycho Lesbian: A true lesbian—meaning not bisexual—is perceived as a sexual competitor who refuses to be sexualized, thus evil and crazy.
  • Tomboy: Active and refuses the feminine gender code—made fun of, expected to grow out of it, presumed to be lesbian.
  • Vasquez Always Dies: One reason why women with lots of agency might be earmarked for death is that they are not helpless and vulnerable, thus have lower passive value.
  • White-Dwarf Starlet: The logical consequence of Hollywood Old, i.e. a woman who no longer looks like a teenager or a young adult will no longer be cast since older women are not allowed to exist or only as background characters.

A side effect of Objectification is that women can only be moral objects and not moral actors. Consequently, more often than not, a woman's chastity and general attitude towards sexuality is the sole unit of measure of her morality. Many of these tropes are being challenged in Western media, however, they still hold considerable sway, possibly because their inverse, that male sexuality is dirty, damaging and defiling has not been addressed to any great degree. It may be that men have to be seen as having sexual innocence (and, conversely, women an equal sexual potency) in order for women to stop being judged by their innocence.

  • All Women Are Prudes: Women should be averse to the idea of sex and preferably frigid when they have it. It ensures their morality.
  • Defiled Forever: Doesn't matter if the "sullying" was from actual rape, if you're a woman and you've had sex, you're damaged goods.
  • Disposable Sex Worker: Goes without saying.
  • Lie Back and Think of England: When a woman has the audacity to engage in sexual intercourse with a man, even if he's her husband, she shouldn't experience pleasure. Only disgusting sluts have orgasms without a doctor's prescription.
  • Madonna-Whore Complex: A woman is judged solely on her hymen. If she still has it, she's pure and perfect. If she doesn't, she's a whore who should be ashamed of existing and must be treated as she deserves i.e. getting a Cruel and Unusual Death.
  • My Girl Is Not a Slut: Only chaste women and virgins are worthy of romance.
  • Rape Portrayed as Redemption: Are you a "bad girl", or even a "bad boy"? You need some Karmic Punishment to teach you to be more passive, and thusly, to be a better person!
  • Slut-Shaming: Any expression of sexuality coming from a woman is an abomination, thus calls for punishment.
  • Nature Adores a Virgin: Applicable mostly to females. Virgins are unable to do bad deeds, as the hymen is a woman's Morality Chip.
  • Virgin Power
  • Virgin Sacrifice
  • Virgin Tension: Virginity is highly desirable in a woman for it heightens the "purity" of women's body.

And, in some cultures, a very negative effect of reducing women's value down to their passive attributes, in this case, sexual chastity, is:

More recently, creators have attempted to correct the objectification of women as passive objects fought over by male characters by making them even more competent than male characters. However, this is exactly the same dynamic. The implication is that a woman's femaleness, not her chosen actions, have made her better than men. Telling girls that they have the power to make the world better because they are girls and not because of their personal choices, once again reduces girls' value down to their passive attributes!

This trend ties into an older trend of viewing women as morally and emotionally superior to men; reflected in the Victorian concept of the 'Angel in the house'.

  • Father's Day versus Mother's Day: Both are intended to be celebrations of the good things parents do and appreciation for them. However, Father's Day is also used as a rallying cry against bad fathers (abusers, deadbeats) whereas it would tend to be seen as completely inappropriate to criticize mothers on Mother's Day.
  • Female Angel, Male Demon: Angels are often portrayed as females because positive attributes such as kindness, refinement, and mercy are associated with femininity.
  • Flawless Token: They're incapable of making mistakes.
  • Men Are Childish and
  • Parenting the Husband: Takes Women Are Wiser to its most insulting by portraying all men as idiots in need of a woman to guide them.
  • Women Are Wiser: Female characters are shown to be more competent and wise then male characters.

One additional effect of focusing on female character's passive attributes rather than their actions is that their actions tend to have fewer negative consequences because female characters aren't seen as responsible in the same way male characters are.

On the one hand, this could be seen as a positive benefit to female characters because they avoid punishment, but on the other hand, the lesser consequences make the moral choices of female characters less compelling—thus female characters less compelling.

Additionally, media exerts influence on how we model our own choices in life. By softening the consequences of a female character's moral choices with excuses—or presenting women as morally perfect to begin with—the potency of moral choice is removed for both female character and female audience. Girls learn that their femaleness—passive attribute—is always more important to an outcome than their actual actions.

In summary, objectification is when a female character is reduced down to her passive attributes and her agency denied. It can manifest in being valued for fanservice, but more subtly when a female character is characterized as good or competent because she's female or her negative actions downplayed as the fault of a male character. The implication is that objects, namely women, don't have the ability to make moral choices; their existence is summed up by their attributes and all their apparent 'choices' are the result of the agency of real people, namely men.

Succinctly, objectification is when a woman's femaleness is presented as more important to the story and her characterization then her actions or choices.

    Reactive 
Women are often used for reaction shots. This heightens horror, imparts a sense of urgency and distress, deepens the emotional impact of events, and sets a mood.

The reactions of female characters are also used to characterize other characters. A character who causes distress to a woman is usually a villain or at best a dark Antihero. This distress can be caused by as little as arguing with her or speaking harshly to her. In extreme cases, this is one reason why the trope Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male exists. The initial female on male abuse is ignored because calling the woman out on it, much less responding in kind, would lead to her being upset.

In terms of characterization, female characters often put more emphasis on their emotional reactions to events and actions taken by others than actual actions taken in response. A female character's emotional sensitivity is seen as a big part of her femininity (see "The Princess and the Pea"). In essence, the more vulnerable, the more delicate, the more she suffers, and the greater emphasis on her inability to recover or take proactive action—her victimhood—the more feminine she appears. Even in modern works, this holds true. Active women may be portrayed as positive characters, but their agency does not make them more feminine.

Overall, anything that creates a negative emotional reaction in women is bad; anything that creates a positive emotional reaction in women is good. To see this in action, observe media for how often it portrays the following sequence: an unexpected revelation is made or there is a surprising action taken, followed by a close-up shot of a woman reacting. Adjust for the relative proportions of male and female characters.

This is likely a result of the Women Are Wonderful effect. What is good for women is seen as good for everyone; conversely, what is bad for women is seen as bad for everyone. This may sound favourable (and in certain circumstances, it definitely is); however, it limits women's drive to achieve and makes their passive attributes more important then their personal successes—what's valuable about women is something they have no control over and don't build for themselves.

Creator and audience ambivalence is often expressed towards women in powerful roles who necessarily have to take on a proactive versus reactive role. Their femininity is often portrayed in opposition to their duty to their people to be proactive and strong and their relationship to power is rarely as natural-feeling as a man in the same position. Although some brands of evil powerful figure are disproportionately female (See God Save Us from the Queen! and Lady Macbeth), as the trope Iron Lady notes, most female leaders are super-competent and less corrupt than their male counterparts.

Although seemingly positive, this may, again, be a reflection of ambivalence towards female power. We feel more comfortable examining all aspects of male power, including the negative ones; these examinations make us far more uncomfortable when it comes to female power—this ambivalence in some cultures manifests as portraying female power as all bad and in ours as all good. Perhaps because a balanced portrayal would make female power more grounded and real rather than stereotypical and unreal thus dismissible as fantasy.

Modeling failure—as well as a success—in female characters is also one way of empowering women to view their success as a result of personal effort rather than unchanging attributes (See Real Life for research into why this is so very important). Also, most powerful people in real life are rarely all good or all bad, just effective.

  • Aggressive Submissive: A dominant character who has a submissive sexual side. Mostly these are women or gay men.
  • Evil Matriarch
  • Family Versus Career
  • God Save Us from the Queen!
  • Go-Getter Girl
  • Iron Lady
  • No Guy Wants an Amazon: Female characters who take action rather than motivate men sacrifice their attractiveness and femininity. (Is balanced out in some respect by Amazon Chaser.)
  • No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Romantic agency in female characters is undesirable to male characters.
  • Quickly-Demoted Woman
  • Rape and Revenge: Rape is often seen as an acceptable in-universe motivation for a female character to become a badass—thus embracing greater agency—and avenge herself. In a way, this supports the idea that agency and action are innately male; only women who are deeply wronged by men become active and only then to punish men for their actions against them—being forced into an active role becomes part of the negative emotional fallout of rape for the woman. This is a somewhat old-fashioned trope.
  • Vasquez Always Dies: Masculine women are more likely to be earmarked for heroic sacrifices than feminine women. It could be because of the discomfort between agency and femininity, it could also be because the woman in question moves from the reactive-valued dynamic of femininity to the active-sacrificial dynamic of masculinity.

One example of the Reactive dynamic for female characters is how emotional dynamics are portrayed in families in fiction. Often children (mostly male children) tend to the emotional needs of their mothers. This is usually portrayed as charming and sweet, rather than abusive and creepy. A specific example would be after a death in the family, after which children are portrayed as tiptoeing around and tending to the emotions of their mothers. Often, these mothers are labeled as pillars of strength for the family; however, they function in story more like emotional albatrosses. This despite the fact that a mother is necessarily older and more mature then her children (yes, even adult children), thus has had more time to develop the wisdom and emotional strength to guide her children through emotional trials.

Another example is how emotional reactions tend to be portrayed as more of the concern of female characters, particularly positive or empathetic emotions (as opposed to anger, hate, and jealousy). Female characters are often shown mediating disputes between male characters, offering solace to other characters caught in a reactive moment (where they are depressed or upset at something), and if a mook expresses concern over the morally dubious behavior of the Big Bad or his orders, almost invariably it will be a female mook (the lone female mook of a bad boss is always the one to bet on for a Heel–Face Turn; she is almost never depicted as relishing the evil she does). Rarely are male characters depicted offering each other an emotionally safe space as this might come across as uncomfortably effeminate or gay (the only exception seems to be war movies). This has the effect of making sympathetic emotions the domain of female characters, which somewhat ridiculous because all people have them and there is evidence that we can't think or make decisions without emotions and this includes the positive and sympathetic emotions. Essentially without them, far from being more effective, we are paralyzed with indecision.

In summary, the Reactive dynamic uses female character reaction as a shorthand way of illustrating how we should feel about setting, events, and characters in the story. Often these reactions are necessarily negative because without conflict there is no plot. This can start feeling somewhat misogynistic. Until audiences start consistently caring about events, settings, and characters negatively impacting on the reactive interior world of male characters, this dynamic is unlikely to change.

    Relational 
Female characters tend to derive their significance through family or relationships to male characters. On the one hand, this suggests that achievement is male while riding on the coat-tails of others is female; on the other hand, it also implies that women are more central to family, and men are more periphery and need to achieve to be part of a family.

    Motivational 
Female characters are often used to motivate other characters. Sometimes this involves wisdom, the power of Heart, or dying tragically. Female characters can also appeal to some aspect of their femaleness to motivate others. The dynamic is in effect when it's implied that a woman's motivational qualities are based entirely on her femaleness, not the skills or abilities she's obtained through her own choices.

The difference between Reactive and Motivational dynamics is the focus. With the Reactive dynamic, the focus is on female characters' reactions to events; with the Motivational dynamic, the focus is on female characters motivating other characters. Often female character's reactions will be used to set up the motivations of other characters—or help the audience buy into those motivations. A classic female-reaction/character-motivation set up involves a scene of a distressed damsel chained to train tracks screaming her head off paired with a shot of The Hero rushing to her rescue on his white steed. There is no question what's motivating his action.

The existence of the Motivational dynamic in media is why despite being portrayed as passive, events in plots often seem to revolve around female characters.

  • Always Save the Girl
  • Cartwright Curse: Disposable Woman, but exaggerated.
  • Chickification: Female characters can function, in story, to motivate other characters as well as being heroes in their own right. That's why female characters survive Badass Decay into a Damsel in Distress without facing death or being written out of a series like male characters. They can still fulfill a plot-important function by motivating others.
  • Damsel in Distress
  • Disposable Woman: Her only purpose is to be killed off, preferably in a gruesome manner, so a male character can avenge her to prove his manliness.
  • Lady Macbeth: Even when it comes to evildoing, evil women usually limit themselves to motivating villains into acting evil.
  • Leg Cling
  • The Lost Lenore: An Always Female Love Interest whose death still affects the main character or his entourage. Male examples do exist but are much rarer.
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl: She exists solely to cheer up, nurture, and inspire a brooding, depressed guy and motivate him to prove his manliness by solving some major problem for the world. She has no life to speak of otherwise.
  • Moe: In its most extreme form, Moe encourages a romantic or sexual attraction to helplessness, whether the character in question is male or female.
  • Morality Pet, Morality Chain: Often a younger, smaller, weaker, kinder female character who keeps an older, bigger, stronger, meaner male character from going off the moral deep end. And his concern for her gives people a reason to care about him.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Often inspired by the death of a male protagonist's wife, daughter or sister.
  • Wife-Basher Basher

A necessary consequence of focusing on female character's motivational qualities rather than their action is:

  • Stay in the Kitchen: Taking physical action is unfeminine and deprives men of the motivation of "a home to protect".

Female characters with dubious morals can use this trope to deceive and manipulate other characters to do their bidding.

    Corrective Developments 
In some cases, creators have attempted to correct imbalances in how the genders are portrayed in fiction. These are not necessarily positive or negative corrections, just attempts to correct.
  • Action Girl: A female character whose greatest value is her agency and her actions to advance the plot.
  • Amazon Chaser: A female character is desirable because of her proactivity.
  • Damsel out of Distress: A traditional damsel as "getting captured for the plot" aspect but more likely to rescue herself or otherwise be a Defiant Captive instead of a passive observer.
  • Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: The crime of rape is justifiably considered horrific, but if inflicted by a woman on a man, nobody cares.
  • Female Gaze
  • Effortless Amazonian Lift: An attempt to show a woman's unexpected physical strength or her dominance in a relationship.
  • Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Reversal of gender roles.
  • Mistaken for Misogynist: A man who treats a woman unequal is actually revealed to be "gender blind" and have other motivations for their deferential or discriminatory treatment, usually a more positive motivation such as Tough Love to motivate the woman to succeed.
  • Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Strong women aren't feminine and shouldn't be; opens up a whole set of characterization problems. As a consequence of this is the Bald Head of Toughness trope. When a woman wants to appear powerful and respectable, nothing does the trick better than shaving off her hair. It shows a refusal of femininity, thus a refusal of "being weak and incompetent".
  • Rebellious Princess: The antithesis to Princess Classic, who rejects her relationship-based inherited status to make her own fortune. Unless, of course, her "rebellion" boils down to substituting one man (her father) with another (her love interest).
  • Showing Up Chauvinists: A woman surprises others by performing well in a field normally dominated by men.
  • Spirited Young Lady: A woman who, while fitting into her culture, knows what she wants and is active in getting it.
  • Proper Lady and
  • Silk Hiding Steel: More modernist takes on these types of characters emphasize that traits which are traditionally considered feminine aren't necessarily weaknesses. When poorly executed, can lead to the implication that strong women are always feminine, and should be.
  • Sisterhood Eliminates Creep: Multiple women team up on one male.
  • Yamato Nadeshiko: The Japanese variant of Proper Lady/Silk Hiding Steel.
  • World of Action Girls: Where a setting tends toward female characters being more likely to provide the action than males, or where it seems every woman is innately badass.

Male Tropes:

As for plot devices and story trappings, male characters tend to be used as expendable minions or pawns creating a sense of danger in a story or establishing a protagonist as a badass. Certain actions taken against men are more acceptable than equivalent actions taken against women as their emotional effects on men are more easily ignored. Male characterization tends towards focusing on action rather than emotional reaction and men exhibit more proactive emotions.

Overall there are four categories to how men are portrayed in fiction: Actified, Proactive, Achievement-orientated and Expendable.

    Actified 
Actified is the counterpoint to Objectified; Characterization is focused almost exclusively on the action of the male character in question. In some cases not only does it seem like his only existence is action but that that action is exaggerated beyond all reason. Think Jack Bauer.

Such patterns also run a risk of stepping into the much darker territory: action taking from men often involves violence and killing other people—almost always other men and almost all exceptions to this rule are villains—at one point or another. Even though it is widely thought as a rite of passage, this expectation associates "real" manliness with the readiness to do violence to other men, often in the service of saving women. Also applies when the story focuses on getting Revenge.

Male characters who fail to live up to an impossible standard of action-taking or being successful (just as you can never be too busy or too thin if you're a woman, there're always more macho things to achieve if you're a man), are failures as men and just like women who fail to be properly feminine, are punished by death or ridicule:

The emphasis on male characters' actions over their attributes may be a contributing factor to the idea that virginity in men is undesirable. Virginity is valuable as a marker of innocence and newness but real men should be taking their value from their actions, not their lack of action. That and also the fact that male sexuality is considered simple and unworthy of study (why going to a proctologist is still considered shameful even as people get more accepting of women going to gynecologists). In fact, it is rarely ever addressed in as much detail as female sexuality, implying that men have no complexity or nuance in their sexuality, other than being sex maniacs. Strangely this also holds true for gay men despite them being depicted as being more cultured then straight men in other areas. When they're not depicted as completely asexual, that is.

One possible consequence of actification is the fact that gay men are viewed as more gay or perverted than lesbians. The focus is on the men's actions, not their emotional responses, which may tend to make people view gay men as insatiable sexual deviants but gay women as merely looking for love in an ultimately harmless but inappropriate way.

Male characters are also given disproportionate responsibility for the activities that transpire around them relative to female characters.

  • Teacher/Student Romance: A male teacher seduces a female student; a female teacher is seduced by a male student.
  • This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Disproportionately applied to male characters. Female characters who tend towards this sort of a loner, exclusive responsibility approach to their problems tend to get the Power of Friendship treatment more often.
  • The Unfair Sex: If something goes wrong in a relationship, it's usually considered the man's fault. Questionable actions taken by men in a relationship are usually seen as worse than the exact same action taken by a woman.

    Proactive 
Proactive means male characters favoring proactive emotions or actions over reactive ones. This particular dynamic comes into effect when male characters are chided for responding with passive rather than proactive emotions. Additionally, male characters are often portrayed as indifferent to damage that would kill normal people or at least have them in traction for months and therapy for the rest of their lives.

It is also interesting to note that, somehow, Jerkassery is masculine. Being smug or just outright assholish (think House) is often seen as a sign of confidence and a willingness to be more proactive than others, thus acceptably manly. Consideration for others being a passive emotion, showing no care for anyone other than oneself, unfortunately, associates selfishness and self-centeredness with manhood. However, unless the character in question wants to run into villain territory he better be shown to respect and care for female characters in some way. Either his Jerkassery gets things done and saves the girl when a more compassionate approach wouldn't have worked, or he demonstrates a willingness to help old grannies across the street on his off hours.

Male characters are expected to set their emotional reactions to events aside in favor of responding proactively to them. In some cases, proactive emotions such as anger and hatred are acceptable, as long as they fuel the action. The more a man can shrug off emotionally, the more masculine he appears to be.

Because male characters are expected to be proactive, their emotional responses to events and characters tend to be downplayed and don't exert as much of an influence on the plot or other characters. An interesting effect of proactive versus reactive emotions is how they change our sense of sympathy for characters who are victims of other character's violence. Victims who react with anger tend to receive considerably less sympathy then victims who react with fear or pain.

  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: If a man does break down and get trapped in passive emotions rather than proactive, he needs a talking-to.
  • How Much More Can He Take?: The tension is in seeing just how much damage a male character can take before he succumbs or gives in.
  • Macho Masochism: Same as above but self-inflicted and over-the-top to the point of being laughable.
  • Made of Iron: Male characters shake off things that would kill normal people or have them in serious therapy for the rest of their lives.
  • Men Are Uncultured and Book Dumb: Being cultured implies receiving education and refinement. Cultural refinement or a focus on learning suggests an aversion to action. Also falls into Women Are Wiser.
  • Men Don't Cry: Expressing sadness and sorrow is strictly forbidden for men since it's an unspoken confession of weakness. Only Berserker Tears are acceptable and Manly Tears, if acknowledged to exist, must be used sparingly.
  • Real Men Hate Affection: In order to be seen as a man, a male character must not display passive emotions such as love and tenderness.
  • Real Men Hate Sugar and Real Men Eat Meat: Related to the above and Manly Men Can Hunt.
  • Slasher Smile: Smiling is an expression of joy which is somehow an unmanly emotion. It's only acceptable when it expresses a killing intent.
  • The Stoic: Men shouldn't show emotion of any kind, not even positive ones.

In situations where a character needs more passive, nurturing emotions to succeed, male characters are often shown as useless or actively malevolent. This includes raising kids and other family situations.

Men's relationship with their children is often portrayed ambivalently. On the one hand, if they don't want children and their partners do (or are pregnant) they are often portrayed as unprepared and immature. If their partner gets pregnant on purpose to jumpstart or upgrade their relationship they are usually told to man up rather than having it recognized in story that forcing a person into parenthood is abuse. Men who want children when their partners do not are often portrayed as creepy, controlling and/or borderline abusive.

  • Awkward Father-Son Bonding Activity
  • Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Fathers have usually no other way to show their care for a daughter than being a judgemental obstacle to their love life.
  • Bumbling Dad: Fathers are often clueless around their children, especially widowers, single dads or when the child is a daughter.
  • I Hate You, Vampire Dad
  • Heir Club for Men: Noblemen are complete jerks to their daughters and only see their sons as vessels for the next generation. (And that's often all they see their sons as.)
  • Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Men need DNA testing if they can get it, to be sure that the child the woman bore is actually theirs. This is often played to make them look jealous.
  • Panicky Expectant Father: Men are useless when it comes to childbirth and break down in hilarious hysterics as soon as labor starts. Even more amusing if the man was established as a badass and he faints during the delivery.
  • Parental Abandonment: Almost always the fact of fathers.
  • Raised by Dudes: Without the presence of women, men are usually shown to be unable to nurture and raise young children. If this can be played out positively when the kid is male and sufficiently grown up to walk, it is not the case at all for babies or little girls.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy
  • When You Coming Home, Dad?

A male character can be depicted as falling into a depression, almost always in response to his own failures as a man. If he fails to be proactive enough—by not protecting loved ones who then die, or, alternatively, for not upholding a standard of morality—he is allowed to succumb to sadness, self-loathing and guilt. But these emotions are always directed at his failure to be proactive resulting in others being hurt, not in response to events or the actions of others that hurt him.

An example of this dynamic is a heroic male character who somehow fails to protect another character (usually a woman) who then falls into a deep depression punctuated with guilt and self-doubt. Possibly leading to a situation where the hero needs to be roused out of his stupor to combat some greater threat.

The lesser focus on men's internal world may also be why creators tend to make more villains men. If you want an uncomplicated bad guy, it's a lot easier to make him male rather than female because female villains inspire more questions in the audience's mind about why she's evil and who made her that way, all of this being summed by the phrase "Behind every bitch, there's a bastard who made her that way". Unconflicted male villains, on the other hand, feel more believable to the audience because of the social construct that men are inherently more evil than women. Male villains don't need to be explained because it's "in their nature".

    Achievement-Oriented 
For male characters, characterization focuses on what the character has accomplished rather than who he's related to or other passive attributes. This is made necessary due to the greater emphasis on male characters taking action in order to create value. Conversely, male characters that are completely defined by their relationships to others or passive attributes or fail to live up to a Badass reputation are not usually well received.
  • But Now I Must Go: No matter how much a man may achieve, he can still do more, cue an unending need to achieve still more with virtually no limit to what is materially possible. If all is done in a place, a man has to go somewhere else and achieve again.
  • I Just Want to Be Badass: Badassery being the quintessence of manhood in fiction-land, this goes without saying.
  • I Want to Be a Real Man: Self-explanatory.
  • Miles Gloriosus: Talks a big talk, but has little to back it up. Usually universally loathed.
  • The Neidermeyer: A superior officer who is characterized by his lack of effective action.
  • Old Master
  • Small Name, Big Ego: A male character whose inflated opinion of himself is not backed up by his actual achievements.

Male characters who put emphasis on their passive attributes are often portrayed as undesirable or unmasculine. This holds particularly true for physical appearance.

  • Bling of War: Men can wear shiny things as long as they reflect glory and achievement (well, sometimes...)
  • Camp Straight: One trait of the Camp Straight is his focus on his appearance.
  • The Dandy: Considered somewhat effeminate for his obsession with his looks.
  • Guys are Slobs: Low standards of hygiene, vulgarity, and boorishness indicate a man has no concern for his physical appearance. Apparently, the stench is close to manliness.
  • Men Can't Keep House: A companion to Guys are Slobs. Being messy also means being manly. Apparently.
  • Sharp-Dressed Man: A man who isn't considered less manly for caring about his appearance. However notice that his choice of attire is usually a business suit, yes this is a subversion that really isn't because a suit evokes a man's business achievement.

    Expendable 
"An irony asserts itself: by being in need of help, men forfeit the right to it."
—Peter Marin, Jill Gets Welfare--Jack Becomes Homeless

An Expendable male character is treated as if their interior, emotionally reactive world is irrelevant. In a way, this dynamic takes Actification to its most extreme and disturbing conclusion; whatever happens to a man he deserves because he failed to stop it from happening. This is the intersection between our belief in men's omnipotent agency and responsibility (compared to women's lack of agency and responsibility) and events that no person can reasonably be expected to be responsible for. It also explains why female-on-male violence (emotional, physical, magical, etc.) is so much more acceptable than the reverse; a man only ever lets a woman hurt him; a woman who is hurt by a man is helpless to stop it.

Another aspect of the Expendable dynamic is that a man who fails to demonstrate uber-agency (a man who isn't Actified) deserves what he gets for failing to be manly. The portion of the Men Are the Expendable Gender quote quoted illustrates this dynamic succinctly.

When a character is Actified, his actions are focused on to the exclusion of almost every other aspect of his character, but we admire him for it. When a character is Proactive, he is shown ignoring his emotional reactions to events and others' actions in favor of responding proactively or having proactive emotions, and he's portrayed as more masculine for it. When a character is made Expendable, he is generally a victim—he's being abused, killed, tortured and raped—however, the audience is expected to feel contempt or just not care. He's letting it happen and failing to live up to a masculine standard, after all!

In some cases this dynamic results in creators 'missing' the fact they're writing rape and abuse into a story. Notice also that some of these tropes involve male characters being the victims of aggressive female action: Oftentimes this is considered humorous precisely because it defies our strong beliefs about male agency and female passivity.

Some very negative effect of this dynamic for men is:

  • Circumcision Angst: Regardless of where you sit on the pro versus con end of circumcision, genital surgery on infant boys without anesthetic is a pretty good example of ignoring male pain.
  • Conscription: With the exception of Israel (which still exempts women from combat), the draft or registration for the draft only applies to men.
  • Draft Dodging: Historically men who were not willing to die or kill for their country were put to death. In World War I non-enlisted men were shamed with a white feather campaign.
  • Honor-Related Abuse: One-third of all honor killings target men. Men are sometimes targeted for failing to live up to the ideals of manhood.
  • We Have Reserves

    Corrective Developments 
In some cases, creators have attempted to correct imbalances in how the genders are portrayed in fiction. These are not necessarily positive or negative corrections, just attempts to correct.
  • Action Survivor: Male characters are now allowed a bit more latitude to freak out in the face of danger and not know what the hell they're doing or what's going on. Creators have discovered that this can make a more interesting story.
  • Authoritative in Public, Docile in Private: Someone who fits the "macho" stereotypes in public is depicted as soft and submissive to their romantic partner, probably implying that they know where to draw the line, or even that their domineering public persona is just a mask.
  • Distressed Dude
  • Female Fighter, Male Handler: Male character appears to help/aid/encourage/handle/support a female one when she's an Action Girl, being usually a Non-Action Guy.
  • Female Gaze: The passive attributes of men are emphasized for the pleasure of (usually heterosexual female) viewers. This allows for male characters having some physical sexual value.
  • Househusband: Men have only recently become accepted as homemakers and caregivers, the traditional "motherly" roles, in contradiction to the literally centuries of assumptions that the only personal value a man could have in a family setting was as breadwinner.
  • In Touch with His Feminine Side
  • Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Reversal of gender roles.
  • Non-Action Guy
  • Papa Wolf
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Male characters who've succumbed to emotional trauma related to war are now characterized in a neutral way, rather than condemned as malingerers. In other words, taking emotional damage in war can be seen as a reflection on how awful war is rather than how weak the man is.
  • Shirtless Scene: Likewise.
  • Weakness Turns Her On

Contrasts

    Contrasts 
  • Leg Cling usually contrasts male dominance versus female submissiveness.
  • Mars and Venus Gender Contrast: The idea that men and women will never see eye-to-eye on any subject, sometimes to the point of being arch-enemies of each other outside the bedroom.
  • Men Buy from Mars, Women Buy from Venus: Exaggerating gender stereotypes to a ridiculous extreme so as to sell a product better.
  • Mother Nature, Father Science
  • Phallic Weapon versus Vagina Dentata: The first is usually humorous or a hammy expression of virility. The second is always a sinister threat of emasculation.
  • Sexy Dimorphism: Males of a fantasy or alien race are far more monstrous and bizarre in appearance whereas females are much more humanoid in appearance.
  • Ugly Guy, Hot Wife versus Abhorrent Admirer: Men that are characterized as slovenly or physically unattractive are married to (and contrasted with) their wife who is typically considered beautiful according to the beauty standards of the day. An ugly woman trying to seduce an attractive man is seen as inherently comical and ridiculous since ugly women can only get men who are as ugly as they are, if not more so.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder You Know That Show... Trope Launch Pad Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top