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The Smurfette Principle
(aka: Smurfette Principle)

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The Smurfette Principle (trope)
She needs the positive attitude to get past being the only one expected to wear heels in the forest.
Chris: I get it! So [points to Danny] you're the cool one, [points to Wallow] you're the funny one, [points to Beth] and you're the...
Beth: Girl.
Bravest Warriors, "Memory Donk"

The Smurfette Principle is in action when the cast is made up of a group of males and exactly one (1) female. This can occur even in works with large casts, so long as each sub-Ensemble (of five or more) contains only one female character. Adding a second female to the ensemble creates a related trope. With the relatively few female-aimed works, contrasting the sheer volume of works that are aimed at males, it stands out that the demographics of fiction shows a ratio of female to male characters much lower than Real Life.note 

Named after Smurfette from The Smurfs, the trope was first coined by an article by Katha Pollitt in the New York Times printed April 7, 1991, called "The Smurfette Principle". The article focused on the trope as it applies to young children, and discussed the negative message: males are individuals who have adventures, while females are a type of deviation who exist only in relation to males. See also Margaret McGowan's Reel Girl column Females 51% of population but minority of imaginary characters and real life power positions.

Compare The Bechdel Test, Two Girls to a Team, and Two Guys and a Girl for similar critiques of female:male proportions in fiction. Affirmative Action Girl is a common way of averting the trope, sometimes preemptively, sometimes as a reaction to the aforementioned criticism. Compare Chromosome Casting when there are zero members of the opposite sex present not only amongst the main characters but in the work itself (maybe except for in the background). This is also Distaff Counterpart to The One Guy. Frequently, the one girl is a Gratuitous Princess for economy's sake. Contrast Gender-Equal Ensemble and Improbably Female Cast. For the music equivalent, you would have Male Band, Female Singer or Female Rockers Play Bass.

Subtropes include Never a Self-Made Woman (women cannot achieve anything without a male mentor or counterpart), Smurfette Breakout (the Smurfette character becomes popular on her own), Starring Smurfette (Smurfette is the protagonist), Territorial Smurfette (another female is added to the show and the original Smurfette reacts negatively), and College Widow (a Dude Magnet who lives near a male-only institution and encourages the attention she receives).

Interestingly, this trope does not actually apply to The Smurfs anymore, as a second female smurf was added to the cast in 1985 and more have been added since.


Subtropes under the Smurfette Principle


Example Subpages:

Other Examples:

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    Advertising 
  • Tetley, a brand of tea sold in the UK, uses animated characters called the Tetley Tea Folk in its advertising. Only one character out of a fairly large group (Tina) is female.
  • The Orangey Tangs were mascots for McVitie's Jaffa Cakes from 1997 to 2001. They were orange fuzz balls who stole Jaffa Cakes for their orange filling. Of the initial five, only one (Zsa Zsa - pronounced "Zah Zah") was female. Even when other Tangs were added, they were all male.
  • The Weetabix gang, featured a gang of skinheads, with the lead being voiced by Bob Hoskins. And one of them is a gel called Bixie. Let DJ Slopes explain it more.
  • Helen Henny from Chuck E. Cheese became one after the Pizza Time Theatre era.
  • Carmella Creeper of the Monster Cereals is the only female monster of the group, and she wasn't even introduced until 2023. The others have been around since the 1970s.

    Asian Animation 
  • In Black Cat Detective, the only woman in the police force is Detective Pigeon, who appears in only one episode. She's absent in the follow-up movie, Mr. Black: Green Star — last time audiences see her, Pigeon was slapped off a steep cliff by the Monkey-Eating Eagle and reduced to an unconscious state, and subjected to Uncertain Doom; however there is a new police recruit, Inspector Sheeta, who's once again the only woman on the force.

    Comic Books 
  • 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank: Paige is the only girl in the group.
  • The Beano: From the mid 1950s to 2021, Toots was the only girl in the Bash Street Kids. Then, as part of a modernisation effort that also saw Fatty renamed to Freddy, they added two more girls, both of whom were also Token Minority characters —Harsha and Mandi— thereby finally averting this trope after over 60 years.
  • "The Big Chill" by Alan Moore is centered around the nine immortal beings still alive as the universe draws to an end. Only one of them, a vampire, is female.
  • Catstronauts: Pom Pom is the only female member of the team.
  • The DCU:
    • Batgirl: As of the Flashpoint reboot, Barbara Gordon often serves as this in Batfamily stories such as Death of the Family and The Trial of Batwoman. Whilst there are still other female members, stories like these use a six-man group comprised of Batman, the four Robins, and Batgirl. The fact that she's the only woman in the cave or at the table really does stand out. Especially noticeable when compared to the end of the Pre-Flashpoint era, which had several more female heroes involved in Bruce's plans for Batman Inc.
    • The Flash: During The Flash (1987), the Flash Family was pretty well-developed and expansive, where besides The Hero Wally West/The Modern-Age Flash, there was Old Master Max Mercury, Team Dad Jay Garrick/Golden Age Flash, Annoying Younger Sibling Bart Allen/Impulse, and Jesse Chambers/Jesse Quick, the only girl in the team. Jesse's gender wasn't used to make her distinguished from the others at least, as she was also the only one with a career outside of superheroing, was a Workaholic, acted as a Cool Big Sis, and was a Deadpan Snarker introverted nerd. She was also the only one to have powers outside of Super-Speed, as she could also have short bursts of Flight and Super-Strength, which compensated for the fact she wasn't quite as fast as Wally.
    • Justice League of America:
      • When Justice League of America (1960) started, Wonder Woman was the only female member of the seven founders. It took almost a decade before Black Canary became the second female member (and that was only after Wonder Woman had resigned; it would take several more years before there was more than one woman on the team).
      • When the team was given a new origin for Post-Crisis with JLA: Year One, made the conscious choice to leave out the Trinity, Wonder Woman was replaced by Black Canary (specifically, Dinah Lance, daughter of the original), but remained the only girl. It was mitigated by the fact the team was smaller, and the fact she was the only woman was explored and deconstructed; Dinah regularly voiced that the boys seem to treat her as a damsel they need to protect, and the fact she's also the youngest and least experienced didn't help with her developing insecurities about her place on the team, not helped by Hal Jordan alternating between hitting on her and making light fun of her.
      • When the comic was rebooted in Justice League (2011), Cyborg was made founder in order to get racial diversity, but Diana was again as the only woman on the seven-character team.
      • When the comic was adapted to television, Justice League explicitly replaced Hawkman with Hawkgirl in the founding 7 to utilize Two Girls to a Team instead of The Smurfette Principle.
    • Legion of Super-Heroes storyline The Great Darkness Saga has Darkseid's Servants of Darkness. Five members, and only one of them is female.
    • The Newsboy Legion has gone through several iterations but only includes one girl, Roberta "Bobby" Harper, the grand-niece of the original Guardian (Jim Harper) and the legal ward of his modern clone. She's also second cousin to Roy Harper (Speedy/Red Arrow/Arsenal).
    • Supergirl: In Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, out of all imps gunning for making the titular heroine's life miserable, Ms. Bigglestone is the only female.
    • Teen Titans: In the first incarnation of the Titans there wasn't even one. They were looking for a token girl and they saw that a character called "Wonder Girl" had already been published (under the Protagonist Title Wonder Girl), so they decided to use her. Somehow they (not to mention their editors!) missed the fact that "Wonder Girl" was actually just Diana as a teenager for something like four or five years real time. She was finally given the first of way too many origin stories in an attempt to fix this mistake. And thus began a grand and glorious tradition of no one having any idea who she is or where she came from.
  • Hunter's Hellcats: Heller is the only female, although having even one female in a WWII combat unit is highly unusual.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Mina Harker/Murray is the Smurfette in the otherwise all-male League, and chosen to be the League's leader. Alan Moore said he titled it "Gentlemen" to reflect the sexist tendencies of Victorian times.
  • Marvel Universe:
    • Annihilators: Ikon the Spaceknight is the only female member of the titular team.
    • The Avengers: In The Avengers (1963), the Wasp was the only female of the five original members. When all the original members left in 1965, but there was still only one female out of the nine-person team; the Scarlet Witch.
    • Fantastic Four: The Invisible Woman, Sue Storm, is typically the only woman, outside of times where the team benches Ben Grimm for whatever reason and he's replaced by Medusa, She-Hulk, or others. Sue acted as both a Team Mom and Cool Big Sis in the family (the fact she's literally the big sister of Johnny Storm/Human Torch fuels this).
    • Ultimate Marvel:
      • The Ultimates: The original line-up is the same one of the Avengers, mentioned above. But she was not alone for long, as Black Widow and Scarlet Witch joined after the first arc.
      • Monica Chang was the only woman on the Avengers/Ultimates team after the Red Wasp left and before Giant Woman (Cassie Lang) joined.
      • Ultimate FF: Sue is the only woman of the team. At one point, when Tony and Sam are unconcious and she's the only one still standing, she thinks that she should have organized an Amazon Brigade instead.
    • X-Men:
      • The launch in 1963 had Jean Grey as the only female member.
      • Polaris, the second female to join the team, didn't join until 1969, although she has had a sporadic history with the team.
      • When the "New X-Men" started in 1975, Storm was the only female member. Since Chris Claremont was writing, she wasn't alone for long.
      • Eventually, the X-Men became quite possibly the heaviest aversion of this trope in the entire genre. At some points in their history, female characters actually outnumbered the males.
      • The original incarnation of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants had Scarlet Witch as its only female member.
    • Youngblood: Judgment Day: Invoked. Glory is keen to the idea of re-forming the Allies of Justice because she enjoys being the only woman in a team of men — it's implied that it makes her feel like she's the one in charge.
  • Metal Men: Platinum was the only female member of the six. Tin later created Nameless, who didn't really do much other than act as his girlfriend. Right before the Cerebus Syndrome Retool, Doc Magnus created Distaff Counterparts of the team, but they were one-off characters. The team finally gained a bona-fide second female member, Copper, in 2007.
  • Scott Pilgrim: One of Ramona's Seven Evil Exes is actually a girl. Ramona is primarily heterosexual and only had a bisexual "phase", so it's actually a surprise the group even includes a girl to begin with.
  • The Smurfs: The Trope Namer.
    • Peyo (their creator) caught some flak by admitting Smurfette was not intended to be a real heroic character at all, describing her in mostly childish ways. Originally, the Smurfs were all male (or possibly genderless). One cartoon explained that Smurfs do not reproduce the way most creatures do; a stork magically delivers them as infants on nights when there's a blue moon. Thus, sex's a moot point. Smurfette's origin story was shown in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon show. She was created by Gargamel to disrupt the lives of the Smurfs. (However, in the conclusion of that origin story, she rescued them single-handedly.)
    • Later, another female Smurf, the younger and more tomboyish Sassette, was created by similar means as Smurfette, except "less clay" seems to equal "younger". She is usually accompanied by three boy Smurfs of roughly the same "age", and the four are collectively reffered to as "Smurflings".
    • The penultimate season added Nanny Smurf, who confusingly seems to have been a natural female Smurf, from Papa Smurf and Grandpa Smurf's generation.
    • The second movie expands Smurfette's story after The Smurfs stayed totally true to the original trope with Smurfette being the only female Smurf present in the movie. The sequel claims that Smurfette was originally something called a "Naughty" before Papa Smurf's spell, created as a Distaff Counterpart of Smurfs in general (not truly evil, but incredibly mischievous). In the actual movie, Gargamel creates two more of these creatures named Vexy and Hackus - one male, one female - in order to discover how to use Papa Smurf's spell to turn them into true Smurfs. Gargamel's actual goal is to use a device to extract "Smurf essence" from not only the real Smurfs, but from Vexy and Hackus as well once the spell is cast, considering them Unwitting Pawns. The two eventually turn against him and are taken in by the actual Smurfs.
    • Smurfs: The Lost Village subverts the trope for the first time in the franchise as it introduces now the new idea of a whole other Smurfs-village which only consists of female Smurfs, for once and all confirming there are natural born female Smurfs. The female Smurfs are also a big part of the movie and even included in the marketing.
  • Super Crooks: Kasey is the only female character with any amount of prominence in the story.
  • Tintin: The only woman who has any major parts is Bianca Castafiore, and she only appears in six out of 23 books. Herge states the Titin was a boy's adventure series, thus leading to the lack of women.
  • Watchmen: Silk Spectre II is the only female super-hero of the second generation, while the WWII era group originally had two female members (Silk Spectre I and The Silhouette), but the latter was kicked out when it became known she was a lesbian. (As at least two males were known among the same group to be closeted homosexuals, the commentary on sexism is definitely intentional.)

    Comic Strips 
  • Bloom County: Discussed twice:
    • The strip has several recurring female characters, but after the Supreme Court declared male-only clubs unconstitutional, a series of strips dealt with the necessity of introducing a regular female character. ("Nothing's more 'male-only' than Bloom County! We've GOT to introduce a WOMAN!") Eventually, Ronald-Ann was created as a regular.
    • Even more directly addressed in Outland: In the strip, a woman asked why all the well-known animal characters in comics and animation are all male, and any female animal characters were just The Girlfriend. Opus announced that the strip was just about to hire the first major female animal character star to join the main cast, Hazel the Hedgehog. In a brilliant sequence that ran for weeks, she lampshaded why most animal characters are male. (Are we asking girls to identify with a "little pig-rodent"? Can she participate in a slapstick pie fight if depicting violence against females is taboo? Is she still her own distinct character if we have to put a bow on her head?)
  • Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For was made as a response to the Smurfette principle (as discussed in The Indelible Alison Bechdel), to force male readers to identify with the female characters, as women often have to identify with male characters. Over the last several years, more male characters have appeared; one of the main characters, Sparrow, had a long-term relationship and a child with a man named Stuart. This may have also been her accommodating what has become to be known as The Bechdel Test in her own work.
  • Tumbleweeds had two Smurfettes — Hildegarde Hamhocker among the townsfolk of Grimy Gulch, and Little Flower among the Poohawks. Aside from Hildegarde's little niece Echo, other female characters are extremely rare (if not non-existent) in the strip.

    Eastern Animation 

    Fairy Tales 
  • Alexander Afanasyev's "Kolobok": The titular character runs into a rabbit, a wolf, a bear and a fox, the latest being the only specifically female animal.

    Fan Works 
  • Black Mesa, the Fan Remake of Half-Life 1, very deliberately added a lot of female scientists to address the imbalance of women in Black Mesa. The company claims to be an "equal-opportunity employer", but all of its employees seen in the original are men, except for the holographic assistant in the tutorial.
  • The Bridge: Downplayed. Each of the core kaiju groups sent to Equestria only has one female. Mothra Lea for the Terra Defenders, Destroyah for the Mutations, and the albino Hyper Gyaos later called Irys for the Dark Hunters. However, they're far from the only female kaiju in the story, as Biollante, Megaguirus, Legion, Otachi, Orka, Raiga, Gaw, Ramarak, and a genderflipped Manda, Varan, and Titanosaurus all have major roles in spinoff material, or cameo appearances or minor roles in the main fic (with said gender flipping explicitly being for the aversion of this trope).
  • The Bolt Chronicles: Applies to Mittens in "The Survivor," a female cat who is friends with Petey and his circle of four male canine pals.
  • Empath: The Luckiest Smurf: Played straight, since it's mostly based on the cartoon show, though the reason for the disproportionate number of male Smurf characters is that Papa Smurf's generation (which consisted of both male and female Smurfs) ended up having mostly male offspring, with only one female Smurf offspring, which turned out to be Sassette.
  • My Little HetaStuck MSTs: Twilight Sparkle is not only the only girl in the riffing group, she's also the leader.
  • I Am NOT Going Through Puberty Again!: Lampshaded by Hinata in chapter 34 when she refers to Fubuki Kakuyoku as the "obligatory kunoichi".
  • According to Haruhiko Takenouchi of Digimon Adventure 02 fame from Digimon Adventure 02: The Story We Never Told, Chidori is stated to be the only female member of the 5 Original Digidestined group.
  • Ma Fille: The final chapter, "Hospital Visit", gives a definitive roster for the Sequel Series, Shining and Sweet, which reveals that each of the three circuits has only one female member; King Hippo (via Adaptational Gender Identity) is the only female in the Minor Circuit, Katrina Beaufort/Chaton Cheri is the only female in the Major Circuit, and Beth McCauldy/Flying Feather is the only female in the World Circuit.
  • My Huntsman Academia: Izuku and Tenya gender-invert this as they're the leaders and only guys on their respective teams, which each have three girls. Ruby, however, plays this straight as the only girl on a team with three guys.
  • The Palaververse: Notes on Burro Delver's history mentions a fourth member out of a list of what appears to be known party members, and the only female:
    a supporting cast of a griffon chieftain, a shapechanging princess, and a fellow donkey searching for his lost love across the oceans
  • Pokémon Crossing: Holly's Pokemon team consists of five guys (Blaziken, Gardevoir, Manectric, Lairon, Altaria) and one girl (a Gyarados).

    Literature 
Examples by author:
  • Isaac Asimov:
    • Dr. Asimov, until he married his second wife, had issues with women due to relations with his beloved Smother. Susan Calvin from the Robot Series was the shining exception in the 400+ books he wrote until he was old (in fact, her dealing with the sexism inherent with being the Smurfette of US Robotics was dealt with in a few of the short stories).
    • Foundation Series:
      • "The Mule": Bayta is the first female protagonist in the series, and has more lines than the rest of the previous female characters put together (not that they had many to begin with). She travels with her husband Toran, the clown Magnifico, and Ebling Mis, meeting leaders of many groups; the Foundation, the Trader revolution, the lieutenants of the Mule, and the imperials of the Galactic Empire, all men. Only occasionally do we see her interacting with other female characters.
      • "Search by the Foundation": When Dr. Darell and Pelleas Anthor create their anti-Second Foundation rebellion, they invite fellow males Jole Turbor, Dr. Elvett Semic, and Homir Munn. Together, these five men discuss how to find evidence of the Second Foundation and what must be done when they have. However, Arkady, the daughter of Dr. Darell, has decided to make herself a member of the group without informing them. She's only fourteen, and decides that a secret mission away from home to discover the Second Foundation sounds much more interesting than merely sitting around at home and doing school work. While Arkady is the only female protagonist, there are several other women who appear in this story. None of them, however, are shown to have knowledge of the First Foundation's rebellion against the Second Foundation.
  • Tamora Pierce has stated she writes stories with female leads precisely because of Gender Inequality. When she was starting the Circle of Magic series, she saw an article that mentioned that 75% of recently published fantasy books had male heroes, so she inverted the figure by having three girls and one boy as the main characters (a male character with stereotypically "girly" plant-based magic at that).

Examples by title:

  • Artemis Fowl: Deconstructed in the first book when Holly point-blank asks Root if he's harder on her because she's a girl. He admits it, and then points out that she's the first female in Recon, and needs to set an example. It's also worth noting that the only other female up for the job Holly considers a "bimbo". The series itself barely averts this trope because of Juliet, Butler's Action Girl sister, though she doesn't do much of anything until Book 3.
  • The Belgariad: The only female disciple of Aldur is Polgara. Well, also Poledra, but she's a Missing Mom most of the time. And these women are Belgarath's wife and daughter, so apparently to be a female member of the group you have to have a connection to a male member of the group.
  • A Brother's Price: The principle is Gender Inverted because men in the series are uncommon due to their fragile health. A boy can feel lucky if his father is still around when he reaches adulthood, and a man will be considered handsome if he has both eyes and all of his teeth. Families consist of a group of sisters, the husband they married, and children. Children within a family can have up to thirty girls with only one boy. A family with four boys and twenty-eight girls is considered uncommonly lucky. It is mentioned that, at social meetings, men gather together for the rare opportunity to talk to someone of their own gender who isn't their father.
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Adaptations tend to present the Greek Chorus of Oompa-Loompas as a One-Gender Race, despite the novel clearly using females. While hundreds of Oompa-Loompas are seen in the 2005 film only one is depicted as female.
  • A Christmas Carol: Most film, stage, and TV adaptations tend to make the Ghost of Christmas Past a woman; they're a being of Ambiguous Gender and age in the book, although the description hews a little closer to male. Typically, Christmas Past is the only major female character in these adaptations. There's just one other woman, Mrs. Cratchit, who gets two scenes (which are themselves rather brief), and all of the other women (Fan, Belle, Mrs. Fezziwig, etc.) show up for one each.
  • The Chronicles of Dorsa: Joslyn was the only women in the palace guards and, prior to that, in the Imperial Army. It's Played for Drama a bit, as in the latter case she'd been forced to defend herself from other recruits attacking her at the recruiter's instruction, killing several, and only was accepted for the Army after this.
  • Cthulhu Mythos
    • Shub-Niggurath, the Smurfette of the H. P. Lovecraft canon, being the only female Great Old One of many referred in his works.
    • Cthylla is the only "daughter" of Cthulhu's numerous offspring.
  • Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys parodies this in the fictional "macho" cartoon "Commander Brock Gonad and His Hard Punchers of Justice," whose cast is proud to include a "Lieutenant Woman" characterized primarily by an "anatomically impossible set of hooters."
  • Deathworld: The trilogy has exactly two female characters who are named, speak or appear in more than a single scene: the hero's Action Girl love interest Meta and, replacing her for the bulk of the second novel, the tag-along slavegirl Ijale.
  • Deptford Mice: Audrey is the only girl in the main group of friends who are the protagonists. However, she does stands out as the lead character due to the trilogy being mostly about her heroic journey.
  • Discworld:
    • The Nac Mac Feegle (or Pictsies) have a hundreds-to-one sex ratio, explained by females being rarely born, but are "Queen Bees" (Keldas) who rule over their sprawling, brawling sons, brothers-in-law, and husband. Keldas may, when fully grown, be larger than the males of the species (Big Aggie of the Long Lake Clan, for example).
    • The Watch books began with a trio of lads, plus Carrot. Sergeant Angua joins the Night Watch as the first w-erewolf. Later on, some of the dwarves start to express the desire to display themselves as female (which is heretical in dwarf culture), so the audience sees a slow growth of female characters in an originally all-male organization.
    • Monstrous Regiment begins with a Sweet Polly Oliver plot with a girl trying to find her brother who's been lost in the national army. As time goes by, the trope is subverted, because the "boys" she joined up with are slowly revealed to be women. Until the trope is completely inverted, with The Reveal that the only one in the squad that was male was Lt. Blouse.
  • Ender's Game: Petra is the only girl ever mentioned at the Battle School; when Ender is first recruited, it is mentioned that girls rarely pass the tests to get in.
  • Extreme Monsters: The witch Jinx is the only female member of the Extreme Monsters.
  • Fate/Zero: Saber, a Gender Bender version of a traditionally male character to start with and the only female amongst five individual servants, each summoned by a single master. None of the masters are female.
  • The Fire Never Dies: Exactly one of the Red Army's senior generals is a woman: General Mary G. Harris Jones, better known as Mother Jones, commander of the Army of Knoxville. She later becomes the first Deputy Premier of the American Socialist Union.
  • Good Omens has a massive cast. In a gang (well, four) of children, only Pepper is female. Of the five Horsemen of the Apocalypse, only War is female. Pepper is even War's Good Counterpart.
  • Harry Potter:
    • Ginny, of the seven Weasley children, is the only daughter.
    • The Grey Lady is the only female house ghost, representing Ravenclaw. There is another prominent female ghost in Hogwarts, Myrtle, but she does not represent a house. (Interestingly, though, Myrtle was a Ravenclaw student when she was alive.)
    • Fleur Delacour is the sole female champion in the 1994 Triwizard Tournament.
    • Of the seven Defence Against the Dark Arts professors seen throughout the series, Dolores Umbridge is the only female.
  • The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School: Played with. The protagonist encounters a team of Kid Detectives called the Brain-Boxes. The team includes one girl, Gertrude Smarthe, who wears a cute pink version of the team outfit and tends to get left out of things by the team's leader because she's a girl — and also includes Jonathan January, who is counted as one of the boys by the rest of the team but identifies as female and hopes to be accepted into Drearcliff (an all-girl school) when she's old enough.
  • The Heroes of Olympus:
    • Periboia, daughter of King Porphyrion, is the sole female Giant.
    • Inverted with Orion, who was the only male Hunter of Artemis. She exempted him from her females-only rule because he was the only man she took a liking to.
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy: Trillian is the only major female character for the first three books, and was Put on a Bus for the second half of the original radio show. Douglas Adams explained why he stuck to the Smurfette Principle in an interview; he wasn't comfortable writing female characters because he didn't understand women. He allowed Trillian (instead of Arthur, as he had originally planned) to make the deductive leaps that narrowly prevent a galaxy-wide war. Then was able to avert the Principle in Books four and five by adding Fenchurch and Random, respectively.
  • Hurog: In Dragon Bones, Stala is, at the same time, the armsmaster and only woman of the Blue Guard, the famous army of castle Hurog where the protagonist lives. It is never mentioned whether she would take women if any applied. She herself is an exceptional woman, who disguised herself as man to get her training, and worked her way up to her present rank.
  • The Icewind Dale Trilogy originally did not have any major female characters, but R.A. Salvatore soon learned that further books of his would be rejected if he didn't add one, and thus Catti-Brie was given the literary equivalent of Promotion to Opening Titles.
  • It: Beverly Marsh is the only female in the Losers Club. This has its consequences later.
  • Jennings: The setting is a boys' boarding school, reducing the chances of female characters being introduced. Matron is the only female regular character (though an elderly woman, Miss Thorpe, is a minor recurring character).
  • Johnny Maxwell Trilogy: Kirsty is the only girl, but does not accept her status, going so far as to call the others 'four token boys'.
  • The Last Days of Krypton: The eleven-member Kryptonian Council only has one female member.
  • Legends of Ithyria: Talon becomes the first woman who serves in the Ithyrian royal guards (though only a few know initially) when the king commissions her. Captain Vaughn is initially disdainful, but Talon quickly proves to be one of his best students and ascends the ranks in record time.
  • Light and Dark: The Awakening of the Mage Knight: There is precisely one female among the White Rock Academy Instructors.
  • The Maze Runner:
    • The plot starts thickening the moment the Glade — which up to Thomas' arrival has been a male-only community — ends up welcoming a girl, Teresa. She's "the last one ever," meaning the Gladers will stop receiving any more aid from their mysterious supplier, and have to think outside the box if they want to survive.
    • Inverted with Group B, which features Aris as its only male member.
  • Mistborn: The Original Trilogy: Deconstructed. The setting's criminal underworld is heavily male-dominated, and as a result heroine Vin- raised to be a thief by her thief half-brother- has been the only (or one of the only) girl or woman in any given situation for most of her life. This has a very visible influence on her personality. Brandon Sanderson has admitted that he considers having Vin be the only female member of Kelsier's crew a definite flaw in the first book, and something he would have made sure to avert if he were writing the story in the present day.
  • Rainbow Magic: Gender-inverted. Of the hundreds of fairies that have appeared, we've only seen three male fairies — King Oberon, Jae the Boy Band Fairy, and Prince Arthur. Some sources have said that Jack Frost is also a fairy.
  • The Scream (Skipp and Spector): Jesse is the only female member of The Jacob Hamer Band, and Tara the only female member of The Scream.
  • Six Suspects: Shabnam Saxena is the only woman among the eponymous six suspects. She is perceived as a Brainless Beauty, partly because she's a Bollywood actress, partly because she downplays her intelligence so as not to intimidate her fanbase. However, she does tear a strip off an interviewer who actually calls her a "brainless bimbo" to her face. All the other women in the story are either minor characters or Satellite Love Interests.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire:
    • Although a lot of women have ruled behind the Iron Throne (*cough* Cersei Lannister *cough*), there is only one known queen regnant in the history of the Seven Kingdoms: Rhaenyra Targaryen. The fact that she ruled during a civil war, coupled with her own personality flaws as well as the inherent misogyny of the setting ensured that there is no more queen regnant; Rhaenyra's granddaughter Daena almost inherited the Iron Throne, but she was displaced by her uncle (and Rhaenyra's son) Viserys because she was "too wild".
    • In the present day, Daenerys Targaryen is the only female claimant to the Iron Throne. In A Feast for Crows, Arianne Martell tries to crown Myrcella Baratheon as queen regnant, but she does so mainly to rebel against her father, her plans go awry, and she stops doing so upon her reconciliation with her father. Excerpts from The Winds of Winter suggest that Stannis Baratheon has designated his daughter, Shireen, to continue his crusade to inherit the Iron Throne, in case he gets killed in battle.
  • The Sword of Shannara Trilogy: It takes 456 pages to reach a female character in The Sword of Shannara. Even her rescuer is very surprised.
  • Tailchaser's Song: The main group consists of two-to-three tomcats (depending on whether Eatbugs is around) and one female named Roofshadow.
  • Throne of Glass: Celaena is the only woman Champion.
  • Tolkien's Legendarium:
    • There is only one known dwarf woman in history — Fíli and Kíli's mother, Dís (who is briefly mentioned in The Hobbit and in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings). Others certainly exist, but she is the only one named.
    • J. R. R. Tolkien later regretted that he didn't have more female characters in The Lord of the Rings, claiming that he didn't know how to write for them. Eowyn's crucial role in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, where she slays the Witch-King, can perhaps be seen as apology for this (most of the female characters he did write are generally regarded as well-written, but there aren't usually many of them).
      Witch King: Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!
      Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel
      Eowyn: But no living man am I!
    • The Fall of Númenor: Brought up. The Númenorean queen consort Erendis at one point gives a lecture to her daughter about how little women feature in the great tales and histories of Middle-Earth, a fact that she attributes to its patriarchal nature and the lack of care and interest men pay to the women of their lives.
  • The Tribe: Sully Tulliver is the sole female member of the titular group, as all the other members are boys.
  • The Twilight Saga: Leah Clearwater is the sole female werewolf not only in her pack, but in history.
  • The Wanderer, by Sharon Creech: Sophie is the only girl among the surly crew of the titular sailboat, made up of her three uncles and two (male) cousins. And they didn't even want to take her in the first place. Their main reasoning was "wouldn't you rather stay at land, where you can take shower every day?".
  • Wolf Pack: Tora is the only female werewolf of the four in the pack.

    Music 
  • The Arrogant Worms: In the banter for "Mounted Animal Nature Trail", they imply Northern Ontario contains only one woman: "There are thirteen people who live there, all of whom are named Frank. Even the girl."
  • Blondie are a prime example of this trope resulting in an unintentional I Am the Band on the part of Debbie Harry, the female singer of a band only otherwise featuring men. It didn't help that many thought that Debbie's stage name was Blondie. The albums released in the band's original run (between 1976 and 1982), always featured the entire band on the cover per her insistence. Debbie did not however, have control over the single sleeves, which almost always feature her alone.
  • The Cranberries: Dolores O'Riordan, as the lead female vocalist and the only woman in the group.
  • How to Destroy Angels: Lead vocalist Mariqueen Maandig is the sole female member.
  • The Protomen: In the Rock Opera album series (based on Mega Man), there's several main male characters, like Dr. Wily, Dr. Light, Mega Man, Protoman, and Joe. The first female lead, Dr. Light's girlfriend, Emily, is introduced for Act III.
  • Jefferson Airplane is a Rock band, which began with six men. While some members left and were replaced, iconic front-woman Grace Slick was introduced in time to be part of the classic line-up, with the release of their 1967 album, Surrealistic Pillow.
  • Lord of the Lost: One of the founding members was Anika "Any" Wayst, who played drums and was the only woman in the band up to her departure. Since then, the lineup has been all men.
  • No Doubt: Gwen is not only the vocalist, but also the only woman in the band. Played With in the music video for "Don't Speak", an Ur-Example.
  • Otava Yo: The violin player Yulia Usova and currently Lina Kolesnik each stood out as the only woman among five or six men.
  • Sonic Youth is a Rock band consisting of (males) Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley, Mark Ibold, and (female) Kim Gordon.
  • Maureen "Moe" Tucker of The Velvet Underground. Who in a subversion of both Male Band, Female Singer and Female Rockers Play Bass, was the drummer.
  • Wolf Alice is fronted by songbird (and occasional screamer) Ellie Rowsell, with Joff Oddie (guitar), Theo Ellis (bass) and Joel Amey (drums). Ellie often recognises the fact that she appears to sound more masculine at times, and on tracks like Moaning Lisa Smile, Fluffy, Giant Peach, and (in an extreme example) Yuk Foo, it clearly shows.

    Myths & Religion 
  • Classical Mythology: In some versions of the myth, Atalanta was the only woman on board the Argo in Jason and the Argonaunts. Some myths also state that Jason refused to allow a woman on the ship, which meant that Medea would be the only woman on the voyage back.
  • The planets in our solar system are traditionally named after deities in the Roman pantheon, and it zigzags between this trope and Two Girls to a Team (at least depending on whether you want to count our planet, as Earth is classified as female in many world religions, including the Roman Terra, which is occasionally used as the "proper" name of Earth): Originally, the six planets were Sun/Sol (male), Moon/Luna (female), Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The moon and sun aren't planets in the modern sense of the word, so that later changed to the nine planets (adding in Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, which was later demoted from planet status), with Venus being the only one left named after a goddess. The next planet discovered was named Ceres, also female, upping the count to two... but Ceres was later demoted into an asteroid, returning to this Principle.
  • Dwarf planets avert this. Of the five most recognized, three (Ceres, Eris, and Haumea) are feminine. Similarly, moons are more often female than male, with many of Jupiter's moons being named for his lovers (but there's still some guys in there).
  • The Taoist Eight Immortals, which represent people from different walks of life, contain one female member in the form of He Xian Gu, though the gender of Lan Cai He is usually ambiguous.
  • Of the Seven Lucky Gods in Japan, Benzaiten is the sole goddess. Some versions, however, up the number of female deities to three.
  • The Eight Dharma Protectors are Buddhist wrathful deities of which only one is female.
  • Subverted in The Bible: Jacob is commonly believed to have fathered thirteen children, of which Dinah was his only daughter. In reality, there is a mention of him having multiple daughters, it's just that nothing happened to the others to make them worth talking about.
  • Most of Santa Claus' reindeer (Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen) are usually portrayed as male. The exception is Vixen, who is often assumed to be the only female reindeer on the team because of her name and is often portrayed as female in adaptationsnote .

    Pinball 

    Podcasts 
  • For the first season of The Magnus Archives, Sasha is the only recurring female character in a cast of mostly male characters. The show later rounds out its cast with more women later on, but for a while it's just Sasha.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • On the world level, the National Wrestling Alliance only had one women's division for about two decades. In the 1950s, World Tag Team Titles for women were introduced and Jack Pfefer presented a World Women's Junior Heavyweight Title belt but only the tag titles stuck. They lasted about thirty years before the WWF took them and killed them.
  • In the WWE Hall of Fame, each year typically has one female inductee against about seven males.
  • La Nazi was the only woman in the CMLL version of Los Boricuas, which is just as well as previous versions had no women and she wasn't even Boricua, just along for the ride. Zeuxis would join her when they became Commando Caribeno.
  • Another CMLL group was Rudos del Ritmoa, evil dancers Kung Fu, Búfalo Salvaje, Gran Apache, Ari Romero, América, Mario Prado, Halcón Negro...of which Estrellita was the only woman.
  • Despite what the name would have you believe, the only biological woman in AAA stable Lucha Libre Latina was Tiffany. The rest were all exoticos, gorgeous Georges and straight male delinquents (granted, LLL wanted to make the entirety of AAA them, so if they succeeded they would have averted this trope).
  • Initially, Allison Danger was the only woman associated with The Christopher Street Connection (alongside Buff E, Mace Mendoza, Fun Athletic Guy and Chris Cabana) and was the only woman in Ring of Honor (where Chris was absent but she was the lone woman among 30 wrestlers). Jailbait and Portuguese Princess Ariel would later join the connection, while Simply Luscious followed Danger in ROH.
  • Happened again in ROH with the move to Sinclair Broadcast Group leaving Mia Yim the lone woman on a roster that usually had twenty eight wrestlers for a television taping, though more women came back around the end of the year.
  • Ashley America argued the business practices of Valkyrie Woman's Pro, the first all women's promotion in New York City New York since Betty Niccoli got the ban on woman wrestlers lifted, unconscionable, accusing them of depriving starving male wrestlers of work and demanding they only run a single women's match(featuring herself, obviously).
  • Kazza was literally the only woman training with Mainstage Wrestling in her native Ireland for years - and began her career wrestling men in intergender matches.
  • Brandi Lauren's goal in EVOLVE, to be the lone woman in the company. Given Mercedes Martinez invited women wrestlers to EVOLVE since the first show, this left Lauren with a lot of work to do. Shotzi Blackheart in turn made it her mission to cut Lauren off before she could make any "progress".

    Puppet Shows 
  • Pili Fantasy: War of Dragons: Vermillion Lady is the only woman on the side of the Eight Wonders of the Evil Dragon.
  • When it comes to The Muppets, whenever a show wants to feature only the core Muppet characters, chances are Miss Piggy will be the only featured female Muppet among them. Otherwise, Janice of The Electric Mayhem and Camilla, Gonzo's chicken girlfriend, are the next-best things to prominent female Muppets.
  • During the show's early days, Sesame Street featured Prairie Dawn as one of the only recurring female characters, and she wasn't even one of the big stars. These days, this trope has been averted, with characters like Rosita, Zoe, Abby Cadabby, and most recently, Julia arriving on the scene.
  • Ojo is the lone main female character on Bear in the Big Blue House. Averted if you count Luna and Shadow.

    Radio 
  • The BBC has been trying to avert (and risk enforcing) this trope on radio (and TV) panel shows since 2014, mandating the invitation of female comedians and saying that there is no reason to have all-male panel shows.
  • The Brewing Network's Justin tries hard to make sure there is at least one woman on The Session- usually it's the chat moderator, with the role mostly filled in the early years by Daniela and afterwards by Beevo. Occasionally Suzie Q would join the crew. Listeners have criticized the show as being overly blokey as a result. The other shows are almost always 100% male, though Beevo occasionally makes a contribution to The Sour Hour, as she is working at The Hop Grenade while the show is recorded.
  • Dead Ringers featured a primarily male cast, with a single female member. This allowed the male impressionists to stick to the impressions they were good at or otherwise fitted their voices (and on the TV adaptation, appearances), while the sole female impressionist had to be three times better because she had to do ALL the women.
  • I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue has a male cast, only qualifying for The Smurfette Principle when they have a female guest. The role of the five cast members are to have one host, and two teams of two comedians each. When Sandi Toksvig first appeared in 1997, she remarked how thrilled she was to be 'in the long line of women who have appeared on the show' (she was the third, after Jo Kendall and Denise Coffey, and the show had been running for 25 years.) This provoked considerable laughter from the audience, and a sort of 'oooh' noise from Tim Brooke-Taylor. Barry Cryer proceeded to make the apologetic comment "Well, they were all in the factories when we started!" note  There's also the scorer, the ever-delightful Samantha who "appears" on almost every episode.note 
  • I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again featured seven members, one of which was Jo Kendall, as the only female cast member.
  • The Burkiss Way had two Smurfettes in quick succession in an otherwise all-male cast: they were... yes, Denise Coffey, closely followed by Jo Kendall.
  • Betty Marsden was the only female performer to appear on Round the Horne and its predecessor, Beyond Our Ken.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Chess has only one female character, the queen, which makes sense since the names are inspired by medieval warfare. However, she is also the most powerful piece.
  • MERCS Miniatures: In 2014 co-op minis game Myth, the core heroes are four men and a woman. (They do offer a set of gender-swapped heroes for separate purchase, which lampshades the problem with its relentless pinkness.)
  • Middle-Earth Role Playing: Eight of the nine Ringwraiths were men, with the only woman in their ranks being the Black Númenorean queen Adûnaphel.
  • Star Wars Customizable Card Game: The core sets and first Force Cycle have exactly one named female Dark Side character: Mara Jade. Female Light Side characters show up twice: Leia and Mon Mothma. Alien species generally avert the principle, since any given species probably has fewer than five character cards. Partially justified because the first sets focused on the original trilogy where the same gender imbalance existed. Later sets draw on the Star Wars Expanded Universe and generally have more named female character cards.
  • Star Wars: Legion: Though unit expansion boxes come typically with 4 to 7 unique sculpts, none of them have had more than one female miniature. Even alien species fill more slots in the later unit boxes.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! often adheres to this trope to a T. Several archetypes (groups of cards that share the same word in their names) are male-dominant with usually one female member. They are often the weakest members in terms of attack and are more defense-oriented. In contrast, female groups are often exclusively female.
    • "Burstinatrix" was originally the only female Elemental HERO (out of five), and it even said so on her original card. (The first version said she was the "only" female among them.) The next was changed because new Elemental HEROes appear later, including female ones, like Lady Heat and Poison Rose. (Rampart Blaster too, if you count the Fusion Monsters.) The Japanese and Korean versions, however, maintain that she's the "only" female, since there has been no new reprint of the card after other female Elemental HEROes were released.
    • "Dark Scorpion - Meanae the Thorn" is the only girl in the "Dark Scorpion" band. She's not particularly sexualized like most other female monsters, but the thorny-whippy sexiness and her dark leather outfit do invoke a Dominatrix motif.
    • "Arnis" of the "Empowered" and her "Summoner" counterpart, the "Red Sparrow Summoner". These two groups of cards are based on the Eastern Zodiac, and the only girls are also probably inspired by Pink Power Rangers as well.
    • "Ehther" of the "Monarchs" and her younger self, "Edea" of the "Squires".
    • "Master Plan" of the "SPYRAL" archetype.
    • "Ib" of the "World Chalice" archetype.
    • "Shinonome" of the "Vaylantz" archetype.
    • Inverted with "Dharc," the only boy of the "Charmers."

    Theatre 
  • William Shakespeare's works generally feature a slightly more realistic gender distribution, but there are a few notable exceptions.
    • Except for the brief appearance of her foil, Lady Macduff, (and, by interpretation, the witches), Lady Macbeth is the only female in the rather extensive cast of her husband's eponymous play.
    • Miranda is notably the only female in The Tempest. In fact, from her perspective, having grown up on an isolated Island of Mystery with only her father and two male servants, she is the only woman in the world. Some modern productions Gender Flip Ariel to accommodate a more female company.
  • Given that the original animated film had only two female members having an active role of the plot (Nala and Shenzi, incidentally each fulfilling the trope on their opposing sides), Julie Taymor of Broadway’s The Lion King’s stage adaptation states this was the reason behind Rafiki’s Gender Flip and bigger role throughout the story.

    Theme Parks 

    Toys 
  • Before becoming a comic book and animated series, the G.I. Joe toy line debuted with a single female character (Scarlett). It added a female villain (The Baroness, first introduced in the comics).
  • Before becoming an animated series, the Masters of the Universe toy line debuted with a single female character (Teela), and after the debut, added a female villain to the team (Evil Lynn). It eventually spun off an entire Distaff Counterpart franchise, She-Ra: Princess of Power, which featured only three MALE characters amongst an otherwise all-female cast.
  • Across LEGO's various themes:
    • BIONICLE:
      • Every major Toa team is composed of five males and only one female.
      • The Matoran villages; the story focuses on six One Gender "Tribes" of Matoran but only the tribe of water is female; consequently all but two female characters are coloured blue. More Matoran tribes exist and are mentioned in the Expanded Universe, to avert the trope: eleven male tribes, three female (Water, Lightning, and Psionics), and a tribe of Light composed of both genders (for what it's worth, the tribe of Plant Life was intended to be female, but a typo set the tribe's male status in stone forever).
      • The Phantoka/Mistika sets zig-zag this. As the Phantoka consisted of half of the Toa Nuva (Pohatu, Kopaka and Lewa) and half of the Makuta (Antroz, Chirox and Vamprah). The Mistika, however, have two females: Gali and Gorast. Gorast is a special case of this trope: She's the only female of the Makuta species left. And then she dies when the energy storms in Karda Nui start up.
      • When the focus shifted to the Agori race on another planet, it was established that their tribes don't have the one gender rule. In theory, there can be more females than there were before since no one tribe has to be malenote , and said females could be of any tribe. In practice, only one female character was introduced as a set in the one-and-a-half years of this story... and she was still the blue one. Supporting material discusses this somewhat — the story arc in question focuses on arena gladiators with survival of the race as a whole at stake and it's mentioned that female gladiators are generally less common because the villagers are less inclined to put their faith in female gladiators, which they perceive to be weaker. Of course, said sole female gladiator introduced really isn't at all fond of the sentiment.
    • LEGO Space Police: There is only one female minifig at all in the third iteration of the linenote .
    • LEGO Galaxy Squad only has one confirmed female human character (Ashlee Starstrider). As for the rest, there's only seemingly genderless robots and aliens.
    • Rock Raiders: Jet is the only female member of the mining crew.
  • Planet Heroes: Dazzle is the only female member of the Planet Heroes. Considering she represents the planet Venus, this may be because Venus is the only major planet named after a female deity (and most of its surface features are named after real or mythological women), or perhaps a reference to the phrase “men are from Mars, women are from Venus”.

    Web Animation 
  • A Guerra Final (The Ultimate War or The Final War): In the fan-continuation of the third season of this same series (originally made by Chinelin (Ribo Zurai)), which was made by YouTuber Elisson D. Souza, at the end of the thirteenth episode (Da ressurreição ao corredor do fim, or in English as From Resurrection to the Corridor of the End), after Jin (from Metal Slug Attack) put an end to the curse of the Avatar of Evil (from Metal Slug 5), (almost) defeating Seyren Windsor (from the Ragnarok franchise), returning to the castle of the Dark Lord and hearing the whole story of the adventure of the four original heroes of this series (Mario, Luigi, Baphomet and Bowser), she decided to join this group of heroes as a fifth member and the only woman in it.
  • Спиногрызы: Elya is the only girl in the cast, while Elena is a recurring character.
  • The Gaslight District: Melancholy is the only female member of the Smiling Dead...or at least after she told three former members of the Smiling Dead, two of them were the only other girls.
  • HFIL: Dodoria (who in the Dragon Ball Z Abridged universe is Gender Flipped) is the only woman in HFIL. Episode 11 reveals that Neighborhood Beta (aka the other HFIL) also only has one female, Zangya.
  • Homestar Runner: Marzipan is the only girl in the main cast, a fact she herself lampshades in one of the old flash games. A DVD-Exclusive toon called "Why Come Only One Girl?" touches on this subject and shows off various failed attempts to introduce another girl to the cast. The creators ended up using the Teen Girl Squad subseries as an outlet for female-focused stories.
  • Senpai Club has a club made out of boys who dislike girls. The Senpais in the club are Hero-senpai, Bowl Cut-senpai, Gang Leader-senpai, Rock n Roll-senpai, and Lady-senpai. Lady-senpai is, as her name suggests, a girl and not a boy.
  • Tankmen: While women have been implied in the shorts, Tank Girl from Tankmen: Infinity is the only female tankman to get in on the on-screen action.

    Webcomics 
  • 1/0: Terra the earthworm is introduced after the Interactive Author initially didn't want any female characters. He wanted his three male characters to remain romantically frustrated, but when it became clear Ho Yay would be the inevitable result, he relented and added her. To spite his characters, he made her a lesbian, so the guys would still be frustrated. The cast grows somewhat over time, but Terra remains the only female in the whole strip.
  • 8-Bit Theater: The primary protagonist group are Fighter, Thief, Red Mage, and Black Mage, plus White Mage. Of the five, only White Mage is female, and she only shows up occasionally.
  • Charby the Vampirate:
    • LaBelle is the only female in her pack, and when she leaves it she joins up with another group that consists of all males outside of herself.
    • Han is the only woman employed as one of King Samrick's Royal Justiciars.
  • Genocide Man: The titular quintet of Super Soldiers has one female member, Lola Lamb. Coincidentally, she's also the only one who had an adverse reaction to the Genocide Project's Bio-Augmentation and was left wheelchair-bound with brittle bones. Zig-zagged when they induct a second woman, Caera Shou.
  • Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name has an almost all-male cast. Out of half-a-dozen protagonists, only one is a girl. The only other recurring woman is a villain.
  • Insecticomics: Kickback claimsnote that viewers had complained that the comic didn't have enough female characters (there's half a dozen male robots introduced in the first dozen or so strips) and uses this as a justification to start a vote over changing Laserbeak's gender to female. This makes her the only robot-female for the next fifty strips (and only the second female in the work). While the cast isn't a Gender-Equal Ensemble, several more females are added.
  • The Order of the Stick: The Order consists of four men, one woman, and an elf (although elves tend to have genders in this series, the androgyny of Vaarsuvius is a Running Gag, to the point of their kids referring to them and their spouse as Parent and Other Parent). While other female characters have become prominent, notably Celia, the six-character band has, at most, Two Girls to a Team. In a very early interview, when asked about V's gender, Rich indicated that he had originally "totally smurfetted" the group, and then decided to run with the androgeny after so many fans commented on it.
  • Questionable Content inverts this: depending on your definition of the main cast, there's anywhere from three to six main girls, but after Steve gets Demoted to Extra as the comic starts focusing on the Coffee of Doom crew, Marten's the only guy in the main group.
  • Six Pack Of Otters: We have not yet been introduced to all six of the Otters that the title implies...but of the five that we have met, four are male. And the fifth, female Otter's presence is felt mostly by the other four (male) cast-member's reaction to her: she's not unseen, but she hasn't had a whole ton of screen-time either.
  • Terra Incognita (2023): While there are other women shown stationed on Aurora III initially only Parker is named, given characterization, and most importantly is the only woman to be a member of the First Recon's Sniper Unit along with the main character O'Shea and several other men. No other women in First Recon are named or given any screentime as more than set dressing until after Parker, and all but a scant handful of the rest of First Recon, is killed in the battle of Aurora III.
  • Triangle and Robert: Linda Concarne is the only female regular in a webcomic of shapes and... things. There's dozens of different characters, but only the one rectangle.

    Web Original 
  • SCP Foundation: As the name implies, "Ms. Sweetie" is the only female included in the "Little Misters" lineup of Dr. Wondertainment-brand anomalies.

    Web Videos 
  • After Hours has four friends on camera. Katie is the only girl amongst three boys.
  • Best of the Worst features a rotating panel of four contributors at a time, but amidst about a dozen male regular and recurring contributors there has only been one woman to appear more than once: Jessi. However she stopped appearing, for reasons unexplained, reducing the panel to an all-male roster.
  • Feminist Frequency has made several episodes dedicated to discussing the Smurfette Principle, and even has a few additional complaints to make in relation to it.
  • Geography Now: Lampshaded in the Uruguay episode, where Barby introduces Hannah for the culture segment as "the incredibly pregnant token female host".
  • Life SMP: Cleo was the only feminine-leaning member of the server during 3rd Life. Later averted with the addition of Pearl and Lizzie in Last Life, and then Gem in Secret Life.
  • QSMP: Jaiden is the only female guest from the Train, and used to be the only woman on the server. It later turns into Two Girls to a Team with the addition of Baghera, which is then further averted with the addition of Niki, Rivers, Mouse, Tina, Lenay, and Bagi.
  • Sex Offender Shuffle: Laura Hughes is the only female sex offender in the lineup.

Alternative Title(s): Token Girl, Smurfette Principle, Token Female

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