The tired trope of Strong Women
When a female character is too kickass, there's no story left to tell about them.
Every so often I get fed up with Strong Women and I have to blog about it. In fact, I've blogged about it several other times.
What filled up my meter this time were comments on a couple of writers groups that I frequent. First off, a writer was asking for help writing a character. This character is the kickass girl who features in much of Urban Fantasy. In fact, the author had made her SO kickass that they couldn't relate to her at all. They simply could not write this character. She was shallow as a puddle. The thread was full of helpful advice, including "don't write her, write the people around her". So ... kind of a Rand al'Thor kind of situation.
The other one was a poll about "which would you rather read about: shieldmaidens or sorceresses?"
I yawned at both categories. They're both Strong Women who would be equally interesting as men. There's nothing to them.
In an earlier blog post, I said:
In books, I enjoy a strong woman as much as anyone. David Baldacci seems to write about tough women with handguns who still manage to be vulnerable. And women are tough. Speaking from experience, you have to be tough to raise kids. When the five-year-old stands there and screams, “NO!” you have to have the willpower to punish him and not let him have his way.
And yet women have this streak of Damsel in Distress, and men instinctively find it attractive. It’s the feminine mystique. Men love to care for their women by doing things for them–putting gas in her car, buying her a coveted item, working long hours to keep her clothed and fed.
Sometimes it’s hard for a woman to let her man do these things. Feminism whispers constantly that she should be out winning those things for herself, and not depend on any mere man.
But as soon as a woman swings a sword, she’s just another man. She’s lost the mystique. (And technically, women don’t have the upper-body strength for swords anyway.)
I recently saw another debate that was splitting hairs about misogyny in movies, and they were complaining about how many times Buffy got rescued by her man-friends verses doing the rescuing. It sounded about 50/50 to me, but man, these women were throwing a FIT.
And yet, I’ll bet you these women read romance novels by the cartload. What happens in romance novels? The heroine is charmed off her feet and into bed by a handsome manporn hero. MISOGYNY!
In this blog post, I listed four characteristics of a strong (female) character. They are Strong Moral Foundation, Gentleness, Listening, and Service. For example, this is what Listening means:
The strong character must be a good listener, empathetic to others. Women are exceptional at empathy, but often this is overlooked in exchange for her leet katana skillz. We want our urban fantasy heroine to dice up demons! We don’t want a Doctor Who character who first seeks to understand the monster. Pff, nobody watches that Doctor Who show anymore, anyway!
(And now with Femme Doctor on the way, I wonder how much of his/her character will be inverted in favor of the Strong Woman trope.)
Elizabeth Elliot talked on her radio show about meeting Betty Greene, one of the founders of Missionary Aviation Fellowship. (You can read more about Betty's astonishing accomplishments in World War I as a WASP, and how she was the first woman to fly over the Andes, here.) Elizabeth Elliot remarked about how she expected a really rough character, but Betty was soft-spoken and very feminine. She asked Betty how she held on to her femininity in the middle of such a male-dominated field as aviation.
Betty replied that she looked around at all the men she would be working with, and she resolved that she would be as feminine as possible. And she said that the men always treated her respectfully.
So, was Betty Greene a Strong Woman? You bet she was. But she wasn't a feminist, because the goal of feminism is to become the same as a man. She was, instead, a woman. There's a reason I'm not writing feminist books.
I want to read more heroines who embrace their femininity. If I want to read about someone acting masculine, I'll read about men. Heck, most male characters have more vulnerabilities than Strong Woman characters. I complain about that here. (Loki, heyo!)
Originally written in 2018 but still relevant. I’m even more tired of Strong Women now in 2024.
Stronk Woman = Mediocre Man Clone
Sensitive Man = Your Girlfriend with Different Plumbing
I think the latter one is worse, as it is in general more deceptive dangerous for women.
But, neither holds much to desire in their arrival, and their departures are typically a relief.
Men and Women are complimentary, with their own strengths, weaknesses, and desires.
Write to those strengths, weaknesses, desires, and differences and it will resonate with your readers.
Agree and disagree. TL;DR: This is a much more nuanced topic than you made it out to be in this post.
The unrealistically overpowered Strong Woman, e.g. the kick-ass Urban Fantasy heroine with amazing sword skills who can best any man, is indeed an absurd trope deserving of an intelligent reader's eye-roll. But the contrary trope, the Weak Woman who can do nothing a man can do, is just as absurd — and that trope was around for a long time, which means it's commonly assumed to be the alternative by default. But the trick is to strike a realistic balance, getting away from these extremes.
I agree that a lot of what you call "feminist" literature presently fails at striking the balance. But I think this has happened because of an over-correction. Every time a new trope takes off in literature that subverts age-old expectations, writers go overboard with it. "The shiny new thing" seduces readers, we know, so as writers we're seduced, too. It takes a while for the shine to wear off so we can interrogate the new trope, get realistic about it, and see how it ought to be used.
So, really, there's an Unrealistic Strong Woman and a Realistic Strong Woman. As readers get bored with the former, rolling their eyes more and more, writers will figure out how to write the latter. The pendulum will swing back towards the middle.
Now, as harsh as what I'm about to say is, please bear in mind I'm doing you the courtesy of assuming you're simply unaware of something, rather than assuming you're arguing in bad faith...
Re: "The goal of feminism is to become the same as a man." In the context of your piece, this means feminism's goal is to turn women into men. That's not the goal. If you think it is, either you're poorly informed about feminism or you're assuming the over-correction stands for the whole philosophy (the exception stands for the rule). Feminism's basic intention is to deconstruct patriarchy and show that women are entitled to the same considerations as men, not that women are men. Various issues, from voting rights to equal pay for the same work to the handling of sexual assault cases, show feminism's intention and application — but I shouldn't have to gesture at them. If you're critiquing a philosophy, first take the trouble to understand it — learn its history, the conditions which gave rise to it — so that you frame it fairly in your critique. A little knowledge goes a long way. I really don't think you'd like to live as a woman in the world as it existed before feminism, if you understand what that world was.
As you probably know (or I can't imagine you'd use it), the phrase "feminine mystique" was coined by a feminist writer, Betty Friedan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feminine_Mystique). The problem Friedan identified was not that "women have this streak of Damsel in Distress" (fair enough) but that the Damsel in Distress was all patriarchy ever permitted a woman to be. Friedan didn't say you couldn't be a housewife, if that's what you wanted. She pointed out that society generally thought you couldn't be anything else, so many men and women (both) made sure you never became anything else.
There certainly are positives to the feminine mystique. You've identified a strong moral foundation, gentleness, listening, and service as qualities of a strong female character. I agree, and I'd add fortitude to that list, since many women have had to stand strong in the face of certain kinds of suffering that many men can't even begin to understand. In my own writing (see the serial novel on my substack), I try to portray women with these qualities and to show men can have these qualities (can in fact learn them from women). The women in my fiction do take up arms alongside the men, and I try to depict that realistically, too. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility. History abounds with examples of women warriors.
The Unrealistic Strong Woman is indeed a tired trope. Let's get away from it, by all means, but let's be thoughtful about what we replace it with. We don't have to swing back to the other extreme. There's a whole spectrum of possibility.
P.S. "Technically" women can't develop enough upper body strength to wield swords? History begs to differ. Since you bring up the katana specifically...
Some history about samurai women and the katana: https://katana-empire.com/blogs/katana/samurai-women-and-the-katana
The naginata was a long bladed weapon, technically not a sword but a polearm, used by samurai women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCo6-BSwdJs
More about the naginata: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naginata