July 27th, 2010
by
Yonmei
As I was surfing the Internet, seeking out feminist mindporn to entertain me, I came across these two posts:
Kate Elliot, asking Epic Fantasy and the Bechdel Test, in which she asks:
How much epic fantasy passes the Bechdel Test? All, most, some, little?
She defines the Bechdel Test for those who do not already know it, but despite that people in the comments-thread that follows (on livejournal, where I have been banned, deleted, and purged… more of that later) still come up with the same old arguments, which are, in no particular order:
1. OMG WHY SO JUDGY? Or: Even if the story doesn’t have at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man, it’s still a good story!
Yes, it may well be. Lord of the Rings fails the Bechdel Test, totally utterly and completely – most of the named women in it never get to talk to each other – but it’s still a good story. It’s just a story that, in Kate Elliot’s fine phrase, “ellides women”. That’s what the Bechdel Test measures.
2. BUT SOME STORIES JUST DON’T HAVE WOMEN IN THEM. As Kate Elliot notes in the comments-thread, while the fighters of your epic fantasy may be mostly or entirely men, unless the war of which the epic fantasy is the story is being fought by an all-male group against an all-male group in deserted hills, there are going to be women around. Medieval times might have seen soldiering and ruling as a role for men, but that didn’t make armies or courts all-male environments: and the presence of women in the world of the narrative means you get to ask the Bechdel question: why are there no women who get to talk to each other about something other than a man?
3. OH I DON’T SEE THAT AS A PROBLEM, PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING PASSES THAT TEST NOW. Followed by the cite of a well-known writer with the assurance that she has LOTS of strong female characters. Lois McMaster Bujold, for example. Mercedes Lackey. Even Anne McCaffrey or C. J. Cherryh. Well, yes. But mostly their narratives don’t pass. Cherryh and Bujold both have lots of strong female characters. But mostly, they don’t talk to each other, except about men. They fail the Bechdel Test in that key respect: as female characters, they tend to have plot-driven conversations only when they are talking to male characters. (Rimrunners, for example, passes the Bechdel Test more strongly than most Cherryh novels, by two brief conversations that Bet has with her bunkmate, apologising for breaking the hygiene regs on her first night, and with the ship’s doctor, claiming she walked into a door: Cyteen, unless we count the long online “conversations” than Younger Ari has with Older Ari, I don’t think passes at all.)
4. WHY DOES IT MATTER?
Well, we’re feminists, so it does. *is judgy*
The other post was Mary Catelli’s, babies in world-building, about how SF writers “neglect to figure out Where Babies Come From and Why It Matters.” It bears almost no relation to the previous post, except in that “having babies” is always (unless you posit Unusually Advanced Technology) something that women – and only women -can do. (Even breastfeeding is feasible for a man given the right hormonal balance, but for growing a fetus from fertilised egg to baby, you need a working uterus….) I cannot help feeling that the dismissal of women from the central narrative correlates with the dismissal of “women’s work” from the central narrative.
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Yonmei at
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Filed under female characters, feminism, women writers | Comments (18)
I had always envisioned the Bechdel test as involving a conversation between only women and thus not particularly useful for books because books with male viewpoint characters generally fail (unless the POV character is an eavesdropper) and books with female POV characters often/usually pass. But if we expand it to group conversations involving two or more women who speak to each other through the course of it, it perhaps gets more interesting.
FWIW, I just reread A Civil Campaign by Bujold, and that one does okay, perhaps largely because of its two female viewpoint characters. Kareen and Ekaterin have some nice conversations about adulthood, for instance.
and books with female POV characters often/usually pass.
No, not necessarily. A surprising number of books with female POV characters still only have the women talking to other women about men or a man. (Even Lois McMaster Vorkosigan: most if not all of the women, even talking to each other, are usually talking about a man. Well, about Miles.)
I cited Rimrunners and Cyteen in my post as two examples of novels that have female POV characters, but still just scrape by the Bechdel Test. (Ariane Emory has one female friend, Amy, but she talks to her about men quite a lot…)
Amen! Never thought of it this way before, but epic fantasy’s tendency to have female characters focused on either getting men or gaining power is widespread and annoying. This also seems to be a problem reflected in other forms of entertainment, like television. Battlestar Galactica and the Stargates are speculative programs, whose genres give writers room to throw gender stereotypes in the proverbial blender, still succeed in falling into the same, tired patterns for female characters.
you exemplified Rimrunners and, forgive me if I’m misremembering, but doesn’t Bet spend half the book sleeping with various members of that ship’s crew? So even in a situation where two female characters have had a conversation about something other than men, you’re still stuck reading a portrayal of a tough heroine who can’t get enough. I compare this to Starbuck from the re-imagined Galactica: awesome, tough, a fantastic female character… Spends half of her time sleeping around. I think she had five different partners through the span of the show. Lame.
If I might offer a suggestion… The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan is dark, epic fantasy, in the George R.R. Martin vein. One of the three main characters is a cool, empowered woman who passes your test. But while this is an awesome read, Morgan’s whole point in writing Steel Remains the way he did emanated from his frustration with the stereotypical and stultifying nature of mainstream SF.
Spencer: you exemplified Rimrunners and, forgive me if I’m misremembering, but doesn’t Bet spend half the book sleeping with various members of that ship’s crew?
Yes, and your problem with this is…?
you’re still stuck reading a portrayal of a tough heroine who can’t get enough.
Oh, right: the point is slut-shaming the hero.
Sorry, I think if you try that, Bet will laugh in your face…
If I might offer a suggestion… The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan is dark, epic fantasy, in the George R.R. Martin vein. One of the three main characters is a cool, empowered woman who passes your test.
Huh? The Bechdel Test is a test of the writer and the narrative, not of the individual characters.
I googled on The Steel Remains and from this review it doesn’t sound like a book I’d rush out and buy, but if I see it in the library, I’d borrow it and see if it grabbed me.
Whilst I totally agree with your post, I disagree with part of your final paragraph because some men *can* give birth – trans men. Trans people are often totally excluded from SFF (and many other) narratives, which does work with the premise of your final paragraph, though – it’s the dismissal of ‘women’s work’ and other alternative stories from the narrative.
I’ve been reading things by Alastair Reynolds lately and the end of your post got me thinking; the books of his that I’ve read have Bechdeled splendidly but have barely touched on children or childrearing, only ever as a minute side detail. Personally, as a woman who has no intention of having children, that made me feel very comfortable with his writing but one could see it as a worldbuilding gap.
steph: Whilst I totally agree with your post, I disagree with part of your final paragraph because some men *can* give birth – trans men.
True, though it also depends what model of trans you’re working with in your SFF culture. Most SFF writers, though, tend just to assume no trans people at all…
[...] Common but foolish responses to the Bechdel Test. [...]
The problem is that the test often is seen as reflecting a
To use LOTR as an example: Imagine that Frodo happened to be female. With comparatively few exceptions, almost everyone who Frodo talks to is male.
Making Frodo female might not pass the Bechdel test or, at least, probably wouldn’t really significantly change the number of female-female conversations in the books. Frodo mostly interacts with men. But of course, it WOULD result in the book being about a female character.
And that sort of sums up the bechdel problem. If it doesn’t have any means of accounting for such a serious change as “make the lead character female instead of male,” is it still a relevant analysis?
If it doesn’t have any means of accounting for such a serious change as “make the lead character female instead of male,” is it still a relevant analysis?
In Book 1 of The Lord of the Rings, “The Return of the Shadow”, there are (as I recall) eight characters with major speaking roles, all male: Bilbo, Frodo, Gandalf, Sam, Merry and Pippin, Tom Bombadil, and Strider. Important to the plot, with named speaking roles, there’s also Fatty Bolger and Farmer Maggot, Barliman Butterbur and Glorfindel. The only two women whom I recall as being both named and speaking in the first book are Lobelia Sackville-Baggins and Goldberry. Neither of them speak to each other, both of them speak to Frodo, and not about a man (or a male hobbit!), so if Frodo were female, the first book would pass the Bechdel test – just. The second book, “The Fellowship of the Ring”, has a major speaking role for a woman, Galadriel, with whom Frodo has more than one important conversation, so that if Frodo were female, again, this book would pass the Bechdel Test.
Frodo isn’t in “The Treason of Isengard”, and the only named female character is Éowyn. Frodo is of course extensively in “The Journey to Mordor”, but the only named female character is Shelob, and she doesn’t speak. If Frodo were female, still neither of those books would pass the Bechdel Test.
In “The War of the Ring”, Éowyn is still the only named female character. In “The Return of the King”, there is Arwen – though I can’t remember if she speaks: Éowyn again, and though it would make sense if she spoke with Arwen, I don’t think we ever see it happen: a woman in charge of the hospital, whose name I can’t remember: and in the return to the Shire, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins and Rosie Cotton – and Galadriel – who as I recall none of them get to say much and none of them speak with Frodo.
Most books and films that pass the Bechdel test do just scrape through in this fashion – as I noted upthread, Rimrunners, with a central female character, scrapes through the Bechdel Test with two and a half conversations with two other female characters.
The Bechdel Test presents a very low bar to cross. But as you note, the majority of the books in The Lord of the Rings would fail the Bechdel Test even if Frodo were a female hobbit. It demonstrates that “make the lead character female instead of male” isn’t really that much of a serious change, when the rest of the narrative is always assumed to depend on male narrators.
To pass the Bechdel Test, a storymaker needs to think of women as able to carry the narrative – not just as a single lead character, as a woman dropped into an otherwise all-male narrative, but throughout the story: the story needs to be set in a world where women have active, commonplace roles in society. What the Bechdel Test forces people to ask is: Given that women tend to be 50% of a normal population, why should it be such a rarity in epic fantasy or in any other kind of story that the Bechdel Test is so frequently failed?
(It occurred to me after writing this post that because of CJ Craig as a central character in the West Wing, speaking routinely to reporters and West Wing staff who happen to be female, the WW passes the Bechdel Test for each season and for most episodes.)
“What the Bechdel Test forces people to ask is: Given that women tend to be 50% of a normal population, why should it be such a rarity in epic fantasy or in any other kind of story that the Bechdel Test is so frequently failed?”
Yes. This. Yes.
This is the point I keep trying, in my upper lever literature classes, to get my Junior and Senior students to grasp. Why does it matter, they keep impatiently insisting to me, that there are no or few women characters in these films, in these novels, in this Disney film we’re looking at, in this TV show aimed at toddlers? Who cares? It’s just how the world is, right?
Except it’s how the world *isn’t*, I tell them and tell them. Look at the world. Is it really 97% men? Is your life 97% men? Do you only talk to and see men? When you go to a restaurant, are all the cooks men? Are the police in your town all men? Do *you* only talk about men?
Also, even here in Arkansas, jeez, is everyone a white straight Xtian guy?
And if that’s not how the world is, why is it how the fictional world is?
The problem isn’t whether any one book or movie passes the Bechdel Test. Something that paints women as inept, cowardly, baby-making sub-humans could pass the test. The Chronicles of Narnia would pass despite its wicked Snow Queen, Susan not being a friend to Narnia once she discovers sex, and the positives of the other girls always seem to be their ability to act like boys.
The problem is how few works, in any media or genre, do pass. Girls and women are underrepresented even when they are depicted as important characters, vital to the plot, with depth and personality. Too often, people try to pass off one strong female as a token gesture, to prove how non-chauvinist they are. I would rather have a full spectrum of women – yes, even weak women, women who want to focus on motherhood, women who are insecure about their looks – in addition to the one strong woman.
Feminism isn’t just replacing a man with a woman, trying to show how much a woman can be like a man. It’s supposed to be about how important we all are, regardless of which sex-bits we have and what gender we are.
If I wrote a story with less than two men, or with two men who only talk about women/a woman, or two men without names, I wonder how that story would be received, what kind of criticism I would hear, what nasty names I would be called.
Hi Meg. I’m not sure who you’re arguing with for the first three paragraphs:
If I wrote a story with less than two men, or with two men who only talk about women/a woman, or two men without names, I wonder how that story would be received, what kind of criticism I would hear, what nasty names I would be called.
You could find out what happens when a writer writes a novel in which there are no male characters, and only two men are referred to as individuals and only then with regard to their relationship with a woman, by googling on Motherlines (1978), sometimes called book 2 of the Holdfast Chronicles, by Suzy McKee Charnas. Charnas herself admits that she got stuck on writing the story for a long time until it occurred to her that she could, in fact, simply write the story with no men in it – the first time (as far as she was aware) any writer had done so.
Part of the problem with creating stories – novels, films, TV – that do not pass the Bechdel Test, is that the gateway people are convinced that stories which do, will not “sell”. See Jennifer Kesler‘s experience of being taught that she must not write film scripts that passed the Bechdel Test. See CBS’s consistent refusal to believe that a cop show starring two women could be a successful show. See MGM/Fox’s consistent refusal to believe that they could make money by releasing DVDs of said cop show.
Is something similar happening at publishing houses? I doubt it’s happening as directly – the mechanics of publishing novels are different from the mechanics of getting films and TV produced. But that writers are saying to themselves “I don’t dare write a novel like that, people would call me names!” – that I believe.
The process of creation inside a writer’s mind towards writing a publishable book, involves as much putting on the brakes as it does letting the mind run away with itself. More, even.
I wasn’t arguing in the first two, just working things out for myself. The bechdel test, to me, isn’t a way to judge a work, but a way to gauge how sexism works when it is less overt.
The third one, I was just a bit offput by playing the “if Frodo was a woman” game. What would change if he were a she doesn’t seem as important as the fact that it really would not change anything just to make a lead character a female.
Oh, and I was just being snarky in the last paragraph by pointing out that while so many people take male dominated stories for granted, the world couldn’t cope if the tables were turned. I won’t write that story, but not for any fear of criticism or even neglect. I just am not an writer. I’d hate to pollute the world with the stilted dribble I’d produce. I’ll have to give the Holdfast Chronicles a try.
Meg — I’m trying to think how to say this without being snarky, but parts of your comment really itch at me — the girls acting like boys/ women being like men parts, specifically.
A long time ago I had a feminist friend point out to me that whenever women started acting like human beings, they were accused of trying to act like men.
Maybe these characters you’re reading as “acting like boys” and “being like men” aren’t really trying to act like men and boys? Maybe they’re just acting like fully actualized humans? I’m just making a suggestion.
Yonmei, I appreciate your candor. I need to be more careful with what I say, especially when I am an anonymous person on the net.
I have no problem with girls being tomboys, getting muddy, being angry, being strong, being leaders. I just think that all too often, women seem to fall into male stereotypes if they want to succeed in formerly male-only professions or that men expect women to act like men. This is a thin line for me to walk so I will try my best. Men are often stereotyped as being strong, unemotional, violent, lacking empathy, afraid of being pansies or pussies. I am not saying that a woman cannot or should not have any of these traits. Well, I would like less violence overall. But I don’t think that women should, by neccessity, have to assume masculine stereotypes. I want to be able to be a woman and still be seen as a whole person. I don’t want to be tough and strong all the time. And I don’t want men to feel like they have to be that way all the time either.
I was just a bit offput by playing the “if Frodo was a woman” game. What would change if he were a she doesn’t seem as important as the fact that it really would not change anything just to make a lead character a female.
Well, yeah, that was the point I was making. Clarified by playing along with the game of “recast the LotR”, which is something I can almost do in my head, I read it so many times before I was 20.
I wasn’t arguing in the first two, just working things out for myself. The bechdel test, to me, isn’t a way to judge a work, but a way to gauge how sexism works when it is less overt.
I think you’ll find that feminist discussions of the Bechdel Test understand that it is not a “test of feminism” – famously, the Alien movies tend to pass, and they are not feminist movies: but it is a fairly basic test, as discussed earlier, of whether the author of the work has been able to create a world in which women exist, as real people with real lives and plotty-subplots of our own.
It’s an indictment of whole genres of work that so few works pass even though it’s such a basic test.
Just a few thoughts about this.
I think there are a few reasons that so few works pass this test, esp. works of science-fiction and fantasy.
For one, I know the kind of stories I like in the two genres tend to be less personal in focus and more on overarching themes and philosophies. Often of course in such stories human characters take such a backseat to the story itself that they are reduced to cardboard. Such stories are unlikely to pass a ‘good dialogue’ test, let alone a bechdel test, even if the main character is female. Not that they couldn’t, but often having the main character converse with another female unless they were in close competition or cooperation would be rather pointless. But that’s just a certain type of story.
Obviously, the more “personal” the focus of the fiction, the less excuse it has for failing a bechdal test, romantic novels and non-fictional works excluded. Thus sci-fi/fantasy books that have more than one female character and focus either on inner conflict or relationships among humans in a given technological/magical environment should be expected to pass.
I guess what I’m trying to say is the Bechdal test is not the be all and end all when it comes to analyzing fiction and probably shouldn’t even be applied to certain types.
Of course there are other tests that could be applied to various forms of literature such as the “redshirt” test. Sex roles are often taken for granted in fiction for both women and men, and I’m not sure it’s more important to have a conversation between two female characters on something boring such as a grocery list or even something useful such as a star chart, rather than not make all your villians male or all your easily disposed of side characters male.