Sexist Writing Checklist

Writing not-sexist stories is tough. I’m not being flippant: I’m a woman who was raised in a reasonably feminist household and who currently lives in an environment with more-feminist-than-average peers, and my first drafts nearly always make me cringe.

It would be easy to explain that the stories in my head come from the stories I read and watch that I love, that I’ve absorbed their not-so-feminist worldview, but although it’s partially true, that explanation doesn’t account for everything. Worse, it passes the buck. Like it or not, many of my storytelling instincts and “first thoughts” are patently sexist.

But that’s what second drafts are for. And that’s why I’ve found the following three questions to be extremely useful in thinking about my own writing.

1. Does the only reason my character is a woman have to do directly with her genitals?

So it’s time to imagine slotting a guy into my female character’s shoes. There’ll probably be that moment of “ugh, no, that’ll never work!” that comes with changing anything about the characters with whom I’ve spent so much time. Fair enough. Some character choices are just arbitrary, the way each of us has an idea of what personalities and physical traits “go with” particular given names. (e.g. “He doesn’t look like a ‘Bill’.” “She’s too extroverted to be a ‘Mildred’.”) But are there any good plot reasons why she can’t become a dude?

If not, no worries – the default position shouldn’t be “make a character male unless there’s some reason she has to be female”. If there are reasons, but they’re along the lines of “well, it explains why she’s so gung-ho about her job, because she’s the first woman to become the company president” or “the setting of my story, which is crucial to the plot, happens to be an all-female environment”, etc., that’s okay, too.

However, it’s not okay if I find the only reason I’ve made a character female is so that she can be a love interest for another character or so that she can be vulnerable to sexual violence. (See Ferretbrain’s theme section Fantasy Rape Watch for some expounding upon the tendency of fantasy writers to make characters female solely so that the plot can hinge upon them being raped. FYI, I don’t suggest you Google that phrase as I stupidly did to find the URL – just follow the link. Really.)

This isn’t to say that female characters can never have romantic plotlines or that no one should ever include rape, harassment, or other types of sexual violence in their stories. But as for me, I want to think long and hard before I do it, because as XKCD pointed out, a man has the privilege of representing just himself as an individual; a woman often winds up representing all of her sex.  If the only reason I have a woman in my story is so some guy can sleep with her or so that she can be assaulted, what does that say about the worth of women and girls in real life?

2. If I did change my female character into a man, would (s)he still be a reasonable character?

I sorta started on this two weeks ago with that blog on Scully and The X Files, but I think it extends to more than just “strong” women. If I changed the female character to a male one, would that new male character seem grossly incompetent? Not just “would he be weird?” – I understand that most cultures have certain expectations about the way individuals of different genders ought to behave, and that some actions read very differently when the gender of the person performing them changes. For instance, if my female character puts on lipstick during one scene, I’m not trying to say that it’s a problem that it feels totally different if I turn her into a man.

What I am trying to say is that if my female character reacts to a setback by doing herself up and seducing her enemy, and if it would feel nasty or demeaning for a guy to use the same strategy (presuming the enemy’s gender and/or sexual orientation have been changed appropriately), I probably need to rethink my plot.

I’m also not trying to say that women and their behaviour should be judged according to the existing standards for men; what this question gets at (for me, anyway) is that sometimes it’s easy to be blind to the stupidity or negativity of a particular portrayal of women because that portrayal is a typical storytelling trope. Switching the woman out for a man rips away the blinders and helps me to judge the actions my character takes in and of themselves.

3. Do I ever have a scene where female characters talk on their own about something that has nothing to do with men?

Before you cry “foul!”, hear me out. I didn’t invent this criterion; I read it somewhere online and talked about it with a roommate. And when I first heard it, I thought, “Oh, c’mon!”

Fair enough to want female characters to have a conversation that doesn’t revolve around heterosexual sex or romance – if all the women do when they’re alone is talk about their relationships with men, that does seem sexist. But what about when the plot involves male characters? Are they not supposed to talk about the villain and their co-protagonist because they’re male?

Well, that’s just the thing: they’re male. Not that villains and heroes can’t ever be male, but think about it. Have you ever seen or read about male characters talking together about something that has nothing to do with women? Of course you have. They do it all the time.

That’s because many stories are set in primarily masculine worlds. A good example is the Harry Potter series: although Harry Potter has been praised for showcasing female characters like intelligent Hermione and vivacious Ginny, most of the characters we meet and hang out with are male. (Don’t believe me? Visit fanfiction.net for, like, two seconds and a) scroll through their character list and b) witness the unusually creative romantic pairings resulting from a lack of women.) Or go through the cast of your favourite ensemble TV shows in your head. Mine all rely on a mix of six to seven men and one to three women*.

So this criterion is actually about the proportion of men to women and their relative importance. It’s a lot easier to meet if my story features a reasonable number of female characters who are important enough to the plot that there actually exist crucial plot points that have to do mainly with women.

And there you have it: why my revisions take me ten times longer than they really should. In case you’re wondering, yes, I have made significant changes to some of my stories when I found I didn’t like the answers that came up to these questions. But, yes, I also have to admit that despite having to answer these questions in ways I don’t like for others among my stories, I’ve kept them the way they were. Hmmm…

* Yes, I’m basing this on Star Trek (all of them), The X Files**, and House. Don’t judge me!

** Although I guess The X Files doesn’t really count as an ensemble show. But, still, going by recurring characters… (Scully, Fowley, kinda Reyes, Marita Whatserface): (Mulder, Skinner, Krycek, CSM, Deep Throat, Mr. X, kinda Doggett, kinda Follmer, Alien Bounty Hunter, the Lone Gunmen, Billy Miles, pretty much every recurring bad guy) = 1:3 if we’re being charitable.