Basic Trope: The female character is wiser, more intelligent, and morally superior to her male foil.
- Straight: Alice is a more moral, smarter, and wiser human being than Bob, who often gets in trouble due to his impulsive, boorish nature.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice is an All-Loving Hero and practically a candidate for sainthood, whereas Bob is a complete Manchild sitting on the couch unemployed and slovenly pounding back beers.
- Every woman in the setting is smarter and saintlier than every man ever.
- Downplayed:
- Both Alice and Bob are highly intelligent, although Alice will occasionally outsmart her male counterpart.
- Bob is by no means a fool, but sometimes lets his emotions take control. The cool headed Alice acts as a voice of reason in these times.
- Alice is only smart by comparison. Bob may act like an overgrown child, but Alice is more like a haughty know-it-all teenager.
- While definitely the morally superior one, Alice isn't all up there in terms of intelligence and wisdom, her male counterpart, while he has done some morally questionable things, Bob is usually The Smart Guy that tends to be Alice's voice of reason.
- (Inversion of the above) Alice is only superior to Bob in terms of intelligence and wisdom, Bob is usually the more morally superior one of the duo despite his shortcomings of being an idiot.
- Both Bob and Alice are extremely stupid, but Alice gets the Smart Ball every so often while Bob never does.
- Justified:
- Bob's issues stem from a dysfunctional childhood, whereas Alice was raised in a stable, happy family, she also graduated from higher education than Bob.
- Bob is a privileged Spoiled Brat who's spent his entire life never having to face the consequences of his failings, or was ever encouraged or made to grow as a person, resulting in him being a stunted and selfish Manchild who lacks any wisdom, and because of his status, will never have to face the consequences and thus never has to change. Alice has grown up in difficult circumstances, including discrimination for her sex and various other issues that pushed her toward being more empathetic of the suffering of others. And because she didn't have anything handed to her and had to work much harder to get better, she has far greater depth and breadth of experiences to derive wisdom from.
- Alice is genuinely Older and Wiser than Bob, having acquired more experience over her long life than her younger, male counterpart.
- Inverted:
- Bob is a more moral, smarter, and wiser person than Alice, who frequently gets into trouble due to her impulsive, unstabled, and Hysterical nature.
- Men Are Better Than Women
- Subverted:
- Alice likes to think that she's morally superior to Bob and acts in such a fashion, but she's actually a hypocrite and equal to Bob at best; she may in fact be even worse.
- Alice is very pretentious and all her knowledge is inaccurate. Bob may be Book Dumb, but he's got a good head on his shoulders.
- Alice is more moral, smarter, and wiser than impulsive, boorish Bob... until Bob's Psycho Ex-Girlfriend, Claire, is shown.
- Alice is more moral, smarter, and wiser than Bob, but they are in an ensemble cast that features men and women of various levels of maturity and common sense favoring neither gender even if Bob and Alice in isolation would seem to be playing it straight.
- Double Subverted:
- And yet the narrative still presents Alice as being morally superior to Bob.
- Claire goes to proper therapy, Took a Level in Kindness and she is revealed as an actually nice and mature person. After Claire meets Bob again and sees Bob's immaturity and dumbness, she can get over him.
- Alternately, Claire's insanity is all an act, she is actually more moral, smarter, and wiser than she looks.
- But other female characters in the show start Took a Level in Kindness and become smarter, while male characters start Took a Level in Dumbass since they know that Higher Education Is for Women.
- Parodied: Alice is a deeply self-righteous individual constantly subjecting Bob to pious lectures, meaning that Bob goes to extreme and absurd lengths to avoid her.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Alice and Bob keep switching between who has the moral or intellectual high ground.
- Feminine Boy Bob is a more moral, smarter, and wiser human being than Masculine Girl Alice, who often gets in trouble due to her impulsive, boorish nature. Sometimes Bob is Not So Above It All compared to Alice, sometimes Alice shows signs of Dumbass No More and is still useful, but then she returns as an impulsive troublemaker again in the next episode.
- Averted:
- Alice and Bob are presented as people with both genuine flaws and genuine virtues, neither being superior or inferior to the other.
- The entire cast consists of either only men or only women.
- Both male and female characters are all shown to be equally messed up in the head as each other, no matter their gender.
- Enforced:
- "We don't want to upset any women in the audience by treating Alice as inferior to Bob — let's give Alice moral superiority at least."
- It's an Exaggerated Feminist Fantasy that the author overchallenges gender stereotype about incompetent women in media.
- The plot needs a Wet Blanket Spouse. Alice is chosen as said spouse because putting a man in said role (even if it's a gay relationship) becomes instant target of the Double Standard.
- Lampshaded: "Bob, you don't know the meaning of the word 'morality'. Only Alice can know about that, she's a woman."
- Invoked: "Women are morally superior to men — just accept it, Bob!"
- Exploited: Bob intentionally feigns foolishness to do his plan secretly.
- Defied:
- "Alice, being a woman doesn't automatically make you a moral person."
- Alice ends up bored about having to be always the intelligent and sensible voice of reason, seeing that she is very emotionally repressed for it and decides to whoop it up.
- Bob figures out his shortcomings and makes a point of fixing them to show up Alice.
- The creators always make sure to keep their count of competent men, competent women, incompetent men, and incompetent women equal out of a desire for symmetry.
- Discussed: "Is this one of those arguments that you're going to win automatically because you're a woman?" "Yes. Because I have morals."
- Conversed: "Sooo... Are the writers completely unaware that this is a myth and that men and women always tend to vary in terms of both morals and wisdom?"
- Deconstructed:
- Alice's wisdom is constantly ignored because of the cruelty and sexism of the society around her. The fact that she is genuinely intelligent and experienced from having to work much harder and smarter to be seen as even remotely equal, only to be dismissed anyways, makes her feel intensely bitter that she could probably do much better at resolving the problem, but due to society's perceptions of her as a trophy or lesser than men, means that she will never be taken seriously for it.
- Alice looks down on Bob due to his numerous failings, whilst Bob resents Alice's superior and hyperjudgmental attitudes towards him. Their relationship breaks down.
- Being always the moral voice of reason, most people go to Alice asking to help and she is always the one who must solve all mishaps thanks to her maturity and intelligence. However, she is so overloaded with problems that, eventually, she gets mad and explodes into a brutal rage.
- Alice's moral superiority over Bob has caused her to begin a movement in opposing the morally flawed men, thus bringing permanent division in men and women.
- Reconstructed: Alice attempts to be less judgmental, and Bob attempts to improve himself. They mend their relationship.
- Played for Laughs:
- Alice thinks she has this going for her, but at every turn she inadvertently proves the opposite.
- Alice is a boorish know-it-all Jerkass in the vein of Rick Sanchez, yet the plot still presents her as this, which of course means that everybody around her (especially Bob) is a hell of a lot worse. This is played for maximum Black Comedy.
- Played for Drama: Even if Alice is Rightly Self-Righteous and Bob can never measure up to her, he can only take being reminded of it so many times before it drives him crazy...
- Played for Horror: Alice's conviction that her actions are moral because she's a woman, women are moral, and moral people always do good things leads her to take pleasure when she finds herself committing Cold-Blooded Torture on Bob.
- Implied: In the only scene Alice and Bob are together, they're in a situation where something is really bothering him but not fazing her in the slightest.
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