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What the female reader expects to see is a good story without gender stereotypes or sexism. Lauren's advice applies. Female readers are going to be very sensitive to sexist tropes and female stere...
Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-19T22:13:20Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33700 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T08:07:26Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33700 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
### What the female reader expects to see is a good story without gender stereotypes or sexism. Lauren's advice applies. Female readers are going to be very sensitive to sexist tropes and female stereotypes perpetuated by male-dominated religions, governments and other institutions, related to personal relationships, mathematical or scientific ability, physical weakness, their menstrual cycles, their roles in sex, or objectification; e.g. your female lead is the most desirable woman in the world! Male authors sometimes give women power by having a man back her up; the queen is obeyed because the king says so, even if the king is elderly and weak as a kitten and could not fight his way out of a paper bag! Avoid any fear of battle or injury greater than you'd give a male, and avoid tokenism (having ONE female in the central cast surrounded by men, with all other females in the story props or 'the normal females'). Like a male hero, a female hero should have flaws that cause her problems; a woman without any flaws that is better than men or women in everything is boring. But flaws are NOT disabilities: Flaws must be something she can overcome mentally, like arrogance, not things like physical size or height. Both genders **can** have disabilities, but the female disabilities should not be _relative_ to a man or involve female stereotypes, like a lack of courage, or hormonal fluctuations, or a desire to be nurturing or to be a parent. And finally, don't try the excuse of a **lesbian** female hero thinking that this lets you write her as you would a male hero. It doesn't. Presume the one and only difference for a lesbian is that she prefers women for sex. Do not presume that single commonality with heterosexual men makes her one of them.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2018-02-22T18:21:57Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 14