Does this scene fail the Bechdel test?
My novel has approximately a dozen women in it, but they don’t tend to talk to each other. Most of them are separated geographically or philosophically and sitting down for a chat does not seem something they would do as they are busy doing other things.
I have two scenes; in one a kidnapper is asking advice from a teenage girl who has a boyfriend on how to attract the notice of the MC - probably fails the test, but essential scene.
The second scene is one where two lifelong friends are watching their sons compete and are discussing an impending foreclosure and then one misconstrues the intent of the other, who was watching her brother, as something potentially romantic. No romantic interest was involved, but the friend has just assessed qualities in the MC she needs for a guardian for her son.
Would that scene fail the Bechdel test?
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3 answers
The Bechdel Test has three rules:
- It has to have at least two [named] women in it
- Who talk to each other
- About something besides a man
Some people who try to apply it use "man" in the romantic sense, but it doesn't have to be.
So if your scene has the two women as named characters talking about a foreclosure, it passes.
The idea is not to tick off a list of checkboxes, but to make you consider the work as a whole: Do the female characters function without male character intervention? Are the female characters interesting on their own? Do they have independent personalities, thoughts, lives, plot arcs? If you removed the male characters, would the female characters still have stuff to do?
Those questions are more important than "Do I have enough lines in this paragraph of these two characters talking about non-romantic stuff to qualify for passing this test?" If your female characters ONLY ever interact because they are talking about relationships with men, that's the problem the Bechdel test is trying to highlight. Women do stuff which has nothing to do with men at all.
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In both scenes, this seems like for women, all roads lead to romance with men; that this is the only thing they are good for. Or in the second scene, the only reason these women are together in the first place is related to child-care.
You do not need women in a story to talk to each other in order to make them actual human beings. You just need them doing something that has nothing to do with sex, romance, dating, or in general mating, reproduction or child care.
Why can't the two women be at a political rally or something (not for anybody related to them)? Why can't they be at lunch discussing a new business project? Why can't the friends be an architect and an attorney?
I'm not saying women never engage in any of their stereotyped female roles, the world is filled with real soccer-moms and housewives, and women that love to shop and talk fashion, and do all the grocery shopping.
But if you want to pass the Bechdel Test (or if you want to write a realistic book, period) then your characters -- including both male and female, black and white, gay and straight, adults and children -- will not fit neatly into their stereotyped roles. They will have other unique interests that are not part of their stereotype, and will have conversations with other people about those interests, and take actions to pursue their interests. If you need an excuse for friends to have a conversation, give them some mutual interest in a topic or activity enjoyed by both men and women.
Typically conversations in a novel (or movie) exist to impart some kind of information or an idea to another character, sometimes they provide inspiration on how to tackle a problem. Keep your focus on that, and avoid cliché settings to get this done. Break free of the stereotype, or even use an anti-stereotype. It may take imagination, but that's the job of a writer.
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The Bechdel Test (which was originally about movies, not books, not that I know which your work is) is meant to apply to the work as a whole. It's not about individual scenes.
Look at your work as a whole. Are female (and/or other non-male) characters well represented, in a variety of positions as appropriate for the setting, and central (not just background or eye-candy)?
It sounds like you have a good amount of gender diversity among characters but I wonder why all the women are separated from each other. If they're "busy with other things," why don't any of those other things involve other women? None of them have female partners? Or co-workers? Or children? Or mothers/sisters/cousins? None of them have conversations with women they meet in their ordinary (or perhaps not so ordinary) lives?
Your scenes do not fail the test, because the test is about the book as a whole. Your first scene doesn't help the work pass and the second scene might or might not, depending on what else they talk about (yes, that impending foreclosure does count).
Keep in mind that Allison Bechdel devised this test in a humorous way (she's a cartoonist). But it's grown into something serious, a way to expose societal norms. The reality is that a large percentage of movies (and some books) fail this very simple, almost no-brainer, test. And few people even realize it. The test shows us just how imbalanced our society's view of gender is.
And don't forget about other types of diversity. For example: https://www.good.is/articles/duvernay-test-like-the-bechdel-test
So yes, aim to pass. But, really, aim higher.
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