Strong female characters

From Geek Feminism Wiki

Strong female characters are usually considered a desirable thing in geek media such as science fiction, comic books, etc.

[edit] Examples of strong female characters in geek culture

(In some cases, "allegedly" strong female characters -- see criticisms below.)

• Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie and television series created by Joss Whedon)
• Zoe Washburne (Firefly television series and Serenity movie created by Joss Whedon)
• Starbuck (Battlestar Galactica television series)
• Ripley (Aliens movie franchise)
• Sarah Connor (Terminator movie franchise and The Sarah Connor Chronicles television series)
• Xena ("Xena" Warrior Princess television series)
• Aeryn Sun (Farscape television series)
• Lara Croft (Tomb Raider computer games and movie franchise)
• YT (Snow Crash novel by Neal Stephenson)
• Esmerelda "Granny" Weatherwax (various Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett)
• Tiffany Aching (various Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett)
• Tanya from the Command and Conquer: Red Alert game series

[edit] Criticisms

A common criticism is that (allegedly) strong female characters are one-dimensional. Oft-cited problems with strong female characers include:

• her strength is in martial arts, but she has no strength of character
• she still has to conform to gender-normative standards of attractiveness
• she will wear skimpy or fetishistic gear to fight in
• she will be strong right up until she can't deal with something and has to be saved by a man
• her strength is diminished when she gets interested in a member of the opposite sex
• her strength is primarily a narrative tool to measure a male protagonists' progress in his emotional maturity plot arc, in which his full maturation is signaled by getting the girl, and her interior life or own motivations are not portrayed (such female characters often feature in works that fail the Bechdel test)
• ... etc.

Some blog posts on the subject:

• Strong Female Characters by _ocelott_ on LiveJournal

"You know what's a problem? Strong female characters. First of all, why do we have to specify "strong" when referring to "female characters?" Why is this not a given? The default for male is not "strong" or "wusstastic," so why do we have to be so specific about the chicks?"

• Stuff Geeks Love: Strong female characters who actually aren't
• On "strong female characters"
• Why Strong Female Characters Are Bad for Women