This is a topic that’s been on my mind lately, after talking to a friend about how well Scott Westerfeld wrote his female characters in the Leviathan series. (Which, BTW, is an amazing example of a steampunk series that didn’t portray women as helpless damsels in distress and then say, “Oh hey, sexism was okay back then, that’s just how it was.” You can write a book that’s set back in the day without making it sexist/racist). It got me thinking about how male authors/screenwriters write their female characters and how female authors/screenwriters write their male characters.



As always, keep in mind that I’m an idiot. Therefore you should take all of my advice with, like, a pound of salt.

Men Who Write Women



It’s impossible to talk about male authors/screenwriters who write female characters without discussing the Male Gaze. For those of you who have never heard of feminism, the Male Gaze is defined by some random internet dictionary as, “an inscription of the image of woman as an object of male desire.” In other words, the Male Gaze is men looking at women, who are looking at themselves being looked at.



This Gaze is discussed a bit in the book Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein. The author talks to an adolescent psychologist who found that when sexually active young women were asked how they felt about their sexual experiences, they often replied that they felt they “looked good,” “looked desirable/sexy,” or that they “felt fat,” rather than how the experience truly felt to them. This attitude stems from a long history of the Male Gaze, where men get to desire and women get to be desired.



Anyone who’s ever read a book or watched a film can probably remember being bothered by how a female character was portrayed. Not in an, “OMG, this movie’s so sexist, I’m boycotting” kind of way. Most of the time, it’s just a small little nagging feeling that the movie or book that you’re looking at is kind of sexist.



Most of society ignores this feeling, but if you’re a man looking to write a female character, then ignoring this feeling would be detrimental. Next time you get that nagging feeling that the female character in some movie/book isn’t being portrayed well, then really stop and think about why you feel that way. Is it because she’s being sexualized? Is it because she’s portrayed as vapid, or catty, or talk-y, or any other stereotype? Once you can identify bad examples of female characters, creating good examples becomes much easier.

Now that I’ve dropped some knowledge on you, we can get down to business. I could go on and on about the do’s and don'ts of writing your female characters, but most of what I intend to say can be summed up by this passage taken from the article “5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women” by David Wong:

“Right now I’m reading a book from mega-selling fantasy author George R. R. Martin. The following is a passage where he is writing from the point of view of a woman — always a tough thing for men to do. The girl is on her way to a key confrontation, and the narrator describes it thusly:

When she went to the stables, she wore faded sandsilk pants and woven grass sandals. Her small breasts moved freely beneath a painted Dothraki vest …

That’s written from the woman’s point of view. Yes, when a male writes a female, he assumes that she spends every moment thinking about the size of her breasts and what they are doing. “Janet walked her boobs across the city square. ‘I can see them staring at my boobs,’ she thought, boobily.” He assumes that women are thinking of themselves the same way we think of them.”

This really sums up a huge amount of frustration that many women feel when reading female characters written by men. Descriptions of women in books like the above are examples of the Male Gaze and how it infects literature and film. It’s men looking at women and assuming that women only want to be looked at. While I’ve never read a book by George R. R. Martin and therefore can’t tell you whether or not his books are sexist overall, I can say that he isn’t the only author who writes female characters that way.

Which brings me to my next point. Male authors, please stop writing female characters who are quite obviously your fantasy girl. The majority of female tropes listed on TVTropes.com stem from male fantasies. By this, I mean that tropes such as the Nubile Savage, Manic Pixie Dream Girls, The Femme Fatale, The Damsel in Distress, Girls with Guns, The Amazon Woman, The Chief’s Daughter, and countless others are all by-products of male authors writing their fantasy women as opposed to real women. I’m not saying that your female characters can’t have traits that resemble the above tropes, I’m just saying that your bedroom fantasies don’t belong in your novel unless you’re writing erotica or a James Cameron/Michael Bay movie.

When you’re writing a female character, it’s important to make her a human being first and foremost. This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised (or not) that most authors (male or otherwise) forget this rule when writing characters who are out of their comfort zone. But if you look at Buffy, she isn’t just an Action Girl. Buffy has many other characteristics besides the fact that she’s pretty and kicks butt. She’s sarcastic and witty, she’s wildly protective, she’s unapologetic, she’s resourceful, and she’s a complete human being. Hermione wasn’t just bookish, she was also an analytical thinker, an activist, genuine, and had good communication skills with others. Lisbeth Salander was such a fleshed-out character that she easily could have carried the book series/films all on her own, without Mikael. She existed without needing the validation of a male character. These are three mainstream examples of legitimate female characters.

To avoid going off on an even bigger rant, I’m going to wrap this section up with this point: When writing a female character, try to think of your daughter/sister/female cousin/niece/mother/aunt, and ask yourself if they could relate to your female character. Ask yourself if they could look up to her and see themselves represented.

Women Who Write Male Characters

While men are certainly guilty of creating fantasy characters, women are also overwhelmingly guilty of this same thing. After Twilight hit stores and everyone died over it, YA literature saw a rise in paranormal romance. This sub-genre was similar to the romance genre in that the majority of these stories (Hush, Hush, Shiver, Evermore, House of Night, etc) were written by women and for women. While there’s nothing wrong with this, a lot of these stories feature fantasy male characters. We’ve all seen them: They’re sensitive, never say the wrong thing, and essentially have every characteristic of the perfect man.

I know that a lot of men are annoyed by these characters, but in reality these characters are even more harmful to girls. They create a false expectation that the guy who’s stalking you and not taking no for an answer must be your soulmate. In these stories, the girl rarely talks about her “type,” she simply falls for the guy because he likes her and because he’s perfect. Female authors are doing what male authors have been doing for hundreds of years: Writing the opposite sex the way they want them to be. Stop doing that!

It’s important to remember that most guys aren’t the testosterone-fueled sex fiends that the media makes them out to be. If you think about the men in your own life, you can probably identify many conflicting traits in each of them. I have a male cousin who has some traits that society views as “masculine” (he plays video games, like explosions in movies, and Megan Fox) but he also has many attributes that society views as “feminine” (he cries during sad movies, doesn’t mind “girl talk,” and gets shy at times). I know another guy who would be described as the “stoic” type, but once you get to know him he has a goofy sense of humor and often hangs out with girls as friends.

It’s these conflicting traits that really make a fleshed-out character. Men aren’t bundles of macho energy waiting to stomp on things and throw bombs at each other. Conversely, they aren’t crying bundles of poetic tragedy waiting to sweep a girl off her feet and then hold her hand while watching a sunset (but only if she’s okay with it). Most men are combination of both, just like most females are a combination of both. As much as sitcoms and romantic comedies try to tell us otherwise, men and women are incredibly similar. We all have “feminine” and “masculine” traits within us. If you keep this in mind when writing, then we as a group can ensure that Jace Wayland and Edward Cullen never, ever happen again.

Women Who Write Women

This is the section that I like to call The Taylor Swift Principle. It’s when female authors make the female lead exact replicas of themselves and then make the female antagonist exactly like the girl they hated in high school. It would be easy to say that women do this because they’re catty, but actually they do this because it’s familiar. Most girls have, at one time or another, hated another girl’s guts. Sometimes for legitimate reasons. So when it comes time to sit down and write our epic novel’s bad chick, our minds wander to that girl. (Note: Many male authors also do this, just in a different way. Lazy writing is not a gender-specific trait). It’s comfortable and easy. The nice thing about this is that it’s easy to combat: just don’t do it.

Similarly, don’t make the “good girl” perfect and wonderful. Many authors give their female leads generically “good” opinions because our society has this idea that “good” people think a specific way. I grew up reading this series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor that featured a character named Alice. Throughout the series, Alice was the voice of all that is good in society. She automatically believed that being gay was okay, never discriminated against black people, always spoke up for women’s rights, and looked down on people who didn’t share her opinions. This kind of character is a nice ideal, but they don’t exist in reality.

Sure, there are plenty of people who share the same opinions as Alice, but they didn’t come out of a box that way. We all have to face our own prejudices at one point or another and overcome them. So don’t try to convince us, as the audience, that your female character has all the wisdom and all the logic and all the right opinions from birth. I’d rather see a flawed character fix her prejudice than a perfect character who has no flaws. The whore/Madonna mindset shouldn’t be present in your book or movie.

Men Who Write Men

If you were a guy reading the section above, you were probably laughing at the stupidity of the female author who dared to make the female antagonist like the girl she hated. “Oh, the petty cattiness!” you thought. Well, we’re getting to you now. I like to call this section You Ain’t All That. It’s for all those dudebros out there who like to inflate their own idea of manliness to create these characters that represent their distorted view of how awesome men are. Yeah, I’m talking about every superhero, almost every war movie, every action movie, every FPS, and essentially any medium that shows men as torch-wielding warriors destined to save the world.

I know that this trope comes from this idea that, back in the day, men were Vikings who got to go around and kick stuff and set things on fire without any consequences. It comes from this idea that men are now domesticated, that things were so much better when people only lived to age twelve and nearly starved every winter because they couldn’t find food. There isn’t anything wrong with writing a male character who saves the day; just don’t make him some muscled, chiseled hunk of awesomeness. It’s unrealistic. It never happened. You’ve been lied to.

That’s my advice, take it or leave it. So, do you guys have any pet peeves when it comes to how men and women are portrayed? Any examples? Send me an ask and let me know!