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We haven't hit our weekly quota of gender posts yet, so, let's have another one. (This one's not about trans people, don't worry.)
This will be an unorganized series of bullet points because I'm responding to an unorganized bullet point video.
The Sentence I Only See Men Write: How writers flatten a female character
In the not too distant past, I was engaged in a conversation in which a familiar complaint was lodged: "Why aren't there more complex™ female characters in fiction?" (Are any real humans "complex" in the way in which that term is applied to fictional characters? I consider this to be a wide open question.) "Why are male literary characters allowed to be anything and everything, while female characters are consistently shunted into a small group of familiar and repetitive archetypes?" To which my immediate response was: "Well, the people who are most deeply invested in this issue and are clamoring the loudest for complex™ female characters are also the ones who most strictly police how female characters are allowed to act, and they complain the loudest when characters don't meet their stringent standards". Fortunately, the youtube algorithm furnished me with evidence to support my hypothesis (that being the linked video above).
Her first point about the "perky tits" thing is, y'know, perfectly valid and reasonable, point granted. That is a silly thing to write. My quibbles started with her second point about the "competence tax":
"Why anybody wanted a competent FMC to begin with". As though we, collectively, sit down with a book carefully chosen for its "competent" FMC and then ensure that the character meets every requirement on our checklist before continuing. This is an NPC's way of approaching art.
Anyway, isn't she just giving away the game here? To be a complex character (i.e. not a "flat" character, the exact phenomenon she claims to be opposing) is to have weaknesses and face adversity. But she immediately claims that a female character whose weaknesses are too prominent will be seen as "wounded", and readers will start to "worry" for her. She complains when she gets what she claims to want. Do you see the issue here?
Do woke feminists truly want female characters to be complex (meaning, multifaceted and sensitive, nuanced and reflective, yes, but also at times damaged, depraved, unloved and ostracized, perhaps even for perfectly valid reasons)? Could feminist literary critics really stomach say, for example, a female Shinji Ikari? Someone who has duties they are expected to fulfill, but who has no identifiable virtues in the classical sense, consistently fails to meet every challenge that is posed to them, and has to be literally, physically dragged into action by other people during the critical final battle (shortly prior to causing the extinction of all humanity due to what is essentially a childish emotional outburst)? I have an inkling that a hypothetical Female!Shinji would fall flat and fail to resonate, particularly for a female audience (regardless of political persuasion), although to be honest I'm not entirely sure why. Meanwhile Male!Shinji, despite not being anyone you could classify as a "role model", is still felt to express something important and universal.
To the extent that we have difficulty imagining a female Hamlet, or Leopold Bloom, or Humbert Humbert, I think it's due to a combination of men and women feeling that 1) such characters would be unrealistic, or would at least represent the extreme ends of the bell curve of possible female behavior, and would thus be seen as novelties, and 2) the Women Are Wonderful halo effect kicking in and causing people to want such characters to be shielded from unnecessary harm and risk. Perhaps these attitudes are immutable, perhaps they are not. But my point is that these attitudes are just as strong among the woke as they are among "traditionalists", if not more so, and this is part of what explains their preference for repetitive generic girlboss characters.
The video continues with some further Do's and Don't's:
I mean. I talk like that. And I'm a dude. Is that a bad thing? Should I not be doing that? (Yes, I know that you just clarified that it was ok, but you also called it insufferable, and you felt that it was important enough to include as its own point in the video, sooo...)
None of them are "bad desires", buuuuut only certain types of desires can actually "drive the plot", apparently.
At some point, the relentless girlbossification of all characters just starts to look like the demonization of perfectly normal and healthy psychological traits (many of which are more common in women, but all of which can also be found in men as well).
Is there really anything so wrong with your wish including "another person's name"? Is that something that a modern liberated woman is always going to feel a bit icky about? If there is any residual "structural misogyny" that remains in the culture of first world western countries in 2026, it lies in our hyper-individualism. Who can you go to today who will not tell you "be your own person, don't care what other people think, define yourself, your own opinion matters most"? Who will tell you the opposite? "Actually, maybe what other people think does matter. Maybe their opinion of you is more important than your own opinion of yourself. Maybe you need other people, in a very deep sense, and that's ok. It's just as legitimate as any other way of being". No one, that's who. (People who are adept at social games will of course tell you that what other people think matters, but usually only in a cynical and utilitarian way, rather than in a deeper personal sense.) Material dependence is actually relatively normalized, at least on the economic left. "Who do you think built all those roads?", "do you know how many government programs you actually use?", and so forth. But emotional or spiritual dependence? Unthinkable. Attitudes that are only fit for weaklings and children.
This is why the Freudian/Lacanian psychoanalytic tradition has the capacity to serve as such a powerful corrective to the excesses of both woke moralism and rightist traditionalism/hyper-individualism; it represents a sort of "middle voice" that has been culturally suppressed. Lacan stresses from the beginning that desire as such is always the desire of the Other ("what does the Other desire from me?"), thus there is no such thing as desire outside of a relational context. A desire that is completely purified of the Other's name is a fantasy. But I digress.
Let me reiterate, the mere fact that a character exists to fall in love is not flatness. It could be written in a flat and uninspired way, particularly if the author is a flat and uninspired person themselves. But those properties are not intrinsic to it qua life project or psychological trait.
Perhaps there are real humans who "exist to fall in love", or perhaps there are not. I pass no judgement on the empirical question. But to the extent that there are such real humans (or, to the extent that we can imagine them, and weave together the threads of such a character as they might emerge from the infinite sea of possible stories), their mode of existence is just as pregnant with possibilities, just as liable to contain secret worlds, just as much an inexhaustible well of pathos, as any other legitimate mode of existence that you might care to name. To assume otherwise would be to import the aesthetic and value judgements of "common sense" and adopt them wholesale; but it is precisely the task of art and the artist to interrogate these judgements and put them into question.
What makes someone an artist (as opposed to a dancing monkey) is their capacity to look at what has hitherto been considered ordinary, common, uninteresting, lowly, drab -- or, in the limit case, ugly, horrific, and evil -- and see the beauty in it that went previously unnoticed, teaching people to look at it anew. To the extent that these principles have hitherto not been applied to "genre fiction" or "commercial fiction", this is a skill issue.
I'm really curious for examples here. I asked Claude for examples, and it gave me a bunch of mystery protagonists, like Holmes and Poirot. And then it generalized to "action heroes", which I quickly pointed out isn't even true, as Bond suffers immensely for his competence.
Thinking now about other competent characters, I can't think of specific ones. Star Trek, which is clearly competence porn, has Picard, who has the job of being the loneliest man in the universe, and Spock who repeatedly denies his feelings only to then rediscover them and be hurt by them. I haven't thought through every TOS and TNG character though, so maybe some of the other men may not apply.
I think it may have a point for "mystery protagonists", but I can't confirm since I haven't read too many. But of course, the whole point of a Holmes-style mystery is that he's investigating other people's lives, meaning the focus is not about his life.
But does anyone have any examples where the original video is correct? Where are the thousands of immensely popular books with competent men who don't pay the tax? It seems to be that the male characters like that are what RedLetterMedia would call "black tank top" protagonists, and even then, they usually have a dead wife.
I do think there is the trope of the modern crime novel police detective who has given his all to the job and this has cost him his marriage, family, friendships, etc. (excessive drinking and smoking may or may not be part of the package). Modern female police in the same role often have the same costs. I am not sure if this is viewed the same way for both sexes in such works, I feel women may be judged in-universe a little more harshly for abandoning traditional roles of wife and mother in favour of career, but this is not necessarily the case (any more?)
I think, though, for the maverick loner male detective, casual girlfriends are a lot easier to come by (and discard/they leave him) than for his distaff equivalent. Spenser is one of the very few who has a stable, settled, long-term relationship and back in the 70s there were a couple of books where the late Robert Parker broke up Spenser and Susan (mostly due to Susan's insecurity) and that didn't go well so they got back together. Jonathan Kellermann tried it with the Alex Delaware character where both Dr. Delaware and his lover split up and got new partners, but they got back together (I think but don't know if that was partly due to readers not liking breaking up the band, and partly that Kellermann couldn't make the casual dating with new partner work for Delaware).
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Here's a possibility: Lazarus Long in Heinlein's Time Enough for Love. Basically a male Mary Sue.
But I think few critics would try to argue that Time Enough for Love is serious literature or that Lazarus Long is a complex character. He's basically just a Mary Sue who is always smarter and better and more competent than anyone around him.
I enjoyed Time Enough for Love and I also enjoyed the Honor Harrington series (which has a female Mary Sue as the lead character) but you have to approach both with the right attitude. Typically, science fiction is more about world-building and plot than it is about characters.
Anyway, I suspect what's going on is that in general people are a lot more sensitive to female suffering than male suffering. So if there is a story where a man "pays the price" or otherwise suffers, it's just not as noticeable or memorable. Thus the idea that only women "pay the price."
I remember that some of the early James Bond movies were criticized by feminists on the ground that they depicted women getting killed. But that if you did an actual count, far more men get killed than do women.
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Of Star Trek protagonists, Kirk perhaps pays the least, but he does pay over and over again. (Despite his reputation, he hardly every gets the girl, and he loses them all the time)
Holmes is canonically kind of a miserable guy who, when he doesn't have crimes or writing of monographs to keep him occupied, gets strung out on cocaine. He's asexual by nature and appears to enjoy none of the other pleasures of life except smoking. Watson is actually quite successful, married (though eventually widowed, and without issue), and often happy, but he's the chronicler, not the protagonist.
Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe is another Holmesian character; he has one pleasure besides solving mysteries, which is eating himself to obesity. His Watsonian sidekick is Archie Goodwin, who gets beat up and arrested a lot. Unlike Watson, Goodwin never marries.
Mike Hammer is the archetype of the noir detective; if you think they don't pay, you don't know the genre (not GETTING paid, now, that happens on the regular)
Yeah, Archie never marries, but he does have Lily Rowan as his long-term companion (conveniently there to go dancing with and off on trips, but never demanding 'put a ring on it' and rich enough to pay her own way and never be dependent on him) and plenty of casual female interest throughout the series of books. Archie is the one Wolfe sends out to seduce female characters for information and this is made quite explicit in one novel. I think some of that was the view (before Sexual Liberation) that being the gay bachelor playing the field was the male fantasy instead of being tied down from an early age with the ol' ball and chain and a couple of kids, and possibly Stout's own character traits as well.
Wolfe also likes beer and orchids, don't reduce him to just being a gourmet! (as well as a gourmand, there's even a cook book)!
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Holmes is an addict and a loner, he isn’t married and is officially a lifelong bachelor. He has lost the one thing that gives a man (or anyone) a true legacy. For Poirot the latter is true, I’d say he’s even more asexual than Holmes, he’s a fastidious neurotic, he’s highly flawed, and many people hate him and even those who don’t often only tolerate him because he is useful or well-connected (on account of his usefulness).
In general, universally hypercompetent main characters are rare.
I would make the argument in those cases that they would have those same problems regardless of their career. Holmes is easily bored and would be an addict whether he was a detective or not. If anything, solving interesting cases (which he only gets to do due to his success) is the only thing keeping him from being constantly comatose.
Poirot appears to be, as you said, asexual. He is not foregoing romance to pursue excellence in his field. He just has little interest in women in the first place.
This is Countess Vera Rossakoff erasure and I will not stand for it! 😁
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Yeah, but that goes back to the original argument where the woman was suggesting that men writing these woman characters will have them be hypercompetent in some ways and then be, say, a terrible mother or give them crippling neuroses. That doesn’t seem too different to Holmes being a hypercompetent detective but also an addict or Poirot being a hypercompetent detective but also a neurotic asshole
True. Flaws tend to humanize characters and make them interesting. She is missing the point in so many ways.
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I don't know about thousands, but it certainly happens. In many hero's journey stories, the protagonist suffers on their way to success, but not because of it. You can absolutely find examples where there is no question as to whether the protagonist did the right thing or if the sacrifices made along the way were worth it. Mystery protagonists are a bit of gray area, since they often don't pay the tax directly, but they do suffer because of certain aspects of their personalities. Whether those aspects are key to their success is somewhat up for interpretation. Sherlock's substance abuse comes to mind as an extreme example of this.
More pertinent to the books she may be reading is the male love interests in women's romance stories. They certainly tend to benefit from their position and don't have real problems to speak of. Perhaps aside from a wild side that only the protagonist can tame.
There are all kinds of stories out there. By including some in your data and excluding others, you can find any kind of pattern that you want. It's just that those patterns don't actually say anything about writing as a whole, and counterexamples are at this point very abundant.
So are we talking about a protagonist like Frodo, then? She wants a female Frodo?
The first thing that comes to my mind for a female Frodo is Dorothy.
I think it's worth noting that Frodo was regularly surrounded by characters who were clearly superior to him in many ways. I think it's pretty likely that modern feminists would not be happy with a female character who needed guidance and support from male characters who were superior to her.
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Or a female Christian Grey, or Doctor Who, or some career woman who has risen to the top of her field and lives a fulfilling life due to the choices she made.
Well, realistically she would probably prefer that none of those existed so her complaints would carry more weight and improve her reach on social media. Having real grievances would be a better look than making up claims that aren't true.
Interesting. I can't comment on Grey or Dr who directly since I've never seen Grey's anatomy, and I've only seen very very few dr who episodes. Do they really not suffer? If so, where does the drama come from in those shows? What is a typical episode (or season, if seasons carry the narrative weight)? They just keep having more people coming to them, and they help them without any particular cost to themselves?
I feel like I've seen softcore porn about women sex therapists who go and help client after client live better lives. Though that probably wouldn't (or would, if your hypothesis about them wanting to complain is correct) make a feminist happy. And it's also not anything anyone watches for the plot.
But these instances of hyper competent masculine characters who simply help others without cost to themselves seem to be so rare. It seems strange for feminists to go calling this out as a great inequity, when there don't seem to be very many.
Christian Grey is the title character of Fifty Shades of Grey, not Anatomy.
Oops. In my defense, I think @Bombadil might have edited the post, originally saying just Grey. Not sure though.
I did edit it to clarify, but I did so before you posted your comment. I try to avoid substantial edits after people reply. It was definitely ambigous.
Regarding Grey's anatomy, while I have never seen the show, I believe it focuses mostly on the interpersonal drama that goes on in the hospital. So his professional skills don't really factor in all that much.
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In dr. Who, The Doctor has human companions who he deeply cares about and a strict moral compass which severely limits his available actions. He also often has to solve problems under severe constraints and without access to his full arsenal of tools. The few episodes where The Doctor does get to show off are reserved for season finales or as payoffs to darker arcs. Christian Grey of fifty shades is a sadist (which is supposedly hot in the context of the story) and not the main character of the story he is a part of.
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