Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42021
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

## It is such a wonderful idea, I am doing it right now.

My story is 3 female protagonists who uncomfortably team up – frenemies. I made them all women because I wanted to see more women adventurers in sci-fi. And probably because I watched too much Charlie's Angels as a child, so … 3 women in spaaaace.

**One of them I cheat and plot as male, then "[Ripley](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/06/female-characters-written-for-men)" back to female.** One is hyper-feminized, the third is cerebral and asexual. They are balanced across other spectrums too. One is action, one is guile, one is lawful. I wanted them to contrast because the story is really about their power dynamics in a rock-paper-scissors way. Making them all female somehow _equalized_ their status so there is no "leader", it made the negotiations of power more transparent.

## Just because everyone is the same gender, doesn't mean everyone is the same type.

Look at Sailor Moon – there is the smart one, and the fighting one, and the comedic one. Women can easily cover the full narrative range: hero, villain, sidekick, matriarch, vain, dumb, smart, good, evil, scientist, truck driver.

## If you _kind of_ want to do it, but it seems hard, or weird, or controversial, **that is probably a good reason to try to do it**.

Experimenting with reader expectations is a good thing. Deliberately breaking tropes, and discovering how a scene reads with a different cast, is going to stretch your skills as a writer. At the very least you will write characters with their personalities and archetypes first, and gendered baggage second.

What is the worst that could happen? The women get bored and hire a male receptionist.

Original score: 9