Something has been nagging at me lately, a question on the edge of my mind
that I finally realized and admitted doing myself recently:
Are we more critical of female protagonists?
I like to think of myself as an equal opportunity person, and I more than
anyone love a great kick ass woman. But I've been seeing a rather disturbing
trend lately. Mostly in reviews. And especially in reviews written by women. I
fully admit to doing the same thing myself, being overly judgmental of female
characters of a book. By why is that? Why don't we seem to hold the same
standards to our male characters as we do to our female?
If a woman is created too strong, then she is considered unrealistic, too
feminine, then she is weak. I'm tired of seeing people bash female characters
and then laud male characters even though they share the same qualities. A man
kills, he is strong. A woman kills, she is a bitch.
Even more troubling, in my opinion, is the startling trend that if the main
female character likes anything even remotely feminine then she is considered
weak. If she cries, she is weak. If she has to be rescued by a man, even if she
has no fighting skills and her opponent is twice her size, she is weak. And
this is coming from other women. When did we start becoming so harsh on
ourselves?
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