Thursday, June 6, 2013

Feminist Character Struggle

While procrastinating my work today, I stumbled across something on Tumblr.

http://gingerhaze.tumblr.com/post/52252821543/feminspire-alyssakorea-tumbling-over-the

It struck a bit of a chord with me because I've been struggling with this same dilemma. I'm writing a science fiction story centered around a war. However, though the military features significantly in my story with several characters having military backgrounds and interacting with various battles across the plot, it is not military fiction. It is a story about a cast of characters thrown into difficult circumstances and how they manage to balance their own needs and desires and the needs of the worlds around them.

It's a very character driven story, but it is very much science fiction. Aside from the obvious signposts of multiple planets and space travel, the science of this universe plays very heavily in the story. I spent nearly a full year learning the basics of physics in order to build a system of space travel that seems possible. In the past few weeks a good friend of mine helped by building accurate stats for my planets including escape velocities relative to the planets' masses, the orbital periods, length of rotations, and more. It's a character story with many of the key elements of hard science fiction.

Still, as a woman writing for a largely male-dominated field, I have to consider how much of what I'm writing will be perceived. I want my female characters to be strong, independent, and utterly competent, but how one goes about that can be difficult in this genre.

The temptation for a lot of writers is to write strong women as indistinguishable from men. They write their women scientists and engineers as identical to men. If a man wouldn't say a certain thing or be treated in a certain way or portrayed in a certain light then they don't portray their women that way. But is that right?

My struggle falls in line with the second panel of that comic. If I make my women strong am I somehow implying that traditionally "feminine" features are negative? For instance, my main character is a woman. She is a pilot, an incredibly brilliant woman who does her job well and isn't distracted by concerns about romance or friend drama. She sleeps with who she wants to, has no desire in being a mother, and has a tendency to be emotionally distant. She also has severe insecurity when it comes to her past and an incident that has haunted her for years. The one time (so far) that she breaks down and lets anyone see a glimpse in her armor, she is immediately seen as fragile and in need of comfort and protection. In fact, several of the males in the story have protective feelings toward her.

Is this because she's a woman? Am I inadvertently contributing to the weakening of this character and the relegation of her to someone needing protection from the men in her life?

I don't think so, because, for one, she is just as likely (or more so) to come to the rescue as anyone else in the cast. She is strong, competent, and fiercely loyal. She takes the lead, can be combative, and is an agent of the plot rather than its object or victim.



She's also not the only female on the cast that is like that. On the ship are three very different women:. And then I introduce another. The fourth woman, a mercenary, may look to fit the trope of the warrior woman, but with a name like "Millie," an effervescent personality, a love of cooking, and a girl-next-door look, she's hardly the standard action girl. So how do I write them and not fall into the trap of writing tropes instead of people? How do I make strong women without decrying "feminine" traits or eliminating them altogether?

Of course, I go through similar processes with my male characters, so I guess I avoid the trap of the third panel. My suave primary male character is constantly trying to prove himself and has a fear of ending up alone even as he pushes people away. My other leading man is loyal and protective and incredibly kind, but for most of the time, that's a problem. He is too used to playing second fiddle and doubts himself. There's a warrior male, too. Stoic, intimidating, gruff. Am I falling into trope categories with these characters, too? Are the limited in who they are and am I failing as a writer?

Then I remind myself to just keep writing, and let the characters grow and change. They each have their own motivations. If I stay true to those, who cares if I'm writing characters that are female or male, feminist or traditional? They'll be real, and they'll be honest. In the end, I think that's what matters.

2 comments:

  1. As you so clearly point out, there is the same problem to keep from writing tropes with *any* character, male/female/traditional/progressive. It sounds to me like you are working through it correctly. Let your characters grow naturally through their interactions. If you can avoid railroading them into forms you expect and having them all react similarly, then you've succeeded.

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    1. I can hardly predict how my characters are going to react to some of the things I throw at them. When I'm writing them, if things are working right, they surprise me all the time. Then I know it's organic.

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