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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42028
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The main problem with gender bias in books or movies is not so much about parity or percentages, but about **force**. Whenever it seems forced is when things tend to go wrong and be received badly.

That is why most stories have a fairly even spread of genders, as something similar to our everyday experience is the least likely to appear to us artificial.

Now compare that to, for example, Ghostbusters. The first movie had an all-male lead team, with female secondary characters. At the time (1984) that matched people's everyday experience [(women made up 25% of the workforce](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/pdf/women_workforce_slides.pdf), so not having a woman in a small team was more the norm than the exception). The 2016 reboot turned all characters into women and received a shitstorm for it, because an all-women team in 2016 is untypical enough to appear forced and artificial.

Your cast is in the same territory by numbers. So the important question is: How natural is this particular constellation within your setting? If set in contemporary western society, two women working together independently of any men and against another team of women is unlikely by pure percentages (6.25% if the gender distribution were random), but with the tiniest of reasons (friends, etc.) is not unbelievably unusual. If we assume that women have 75% female friends, and see your protagonists and antagonists as two teams, the probability of this constellation works out to about 28% - enough to suspend disbelief because there are enough stories with other constellations around.

You might want to throw in enough male secondary characters to ensure that the absence of males is not suspicious (which means: appears to be making a point that you don't intend to make).

Original score: 1