# The Bechdel Test: does your book fail this test?



## MsTee (Jul 30, 2012)

What is the Bechdel Test? A snippet from this Wikipedia article says:



> The Bechdel test asks whether a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.
> 
> What is now known as the Bechdel test was introduced in Alison Bechdel's comic strip ***** to Watch Out For. In a 1985 strip titled "The Rule", an unnamed female character says that she only watches a movie if it satisfies the following requirements:
> 
> ...


Upon a re-read of _all_ of my written works (even fanfic!), I have FAILED this test with flying, frisbeeing, sky-diving colours!   

What about the rest of you? *totally looking at all you Chick Lit / Romance Comedy / New Adult writers*


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Heh. In my first book one of my female characters tells off another one for bitching about a third. Does that count?


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Mine pass the test, but then again I write books with some romance, but romance is not the main subject.


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## Nicole Castro (Sep 23, 2013)

All five of my romances pass!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

All mine pass, but no surprise, given that two of them are about a woman who is Pharaoh.  And so will be two more.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Most of mine pass the test. I love sharp woman-to-woman dialogue. In books and in life.


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## MsTee (Jul 30, 2012)

Lydniz said:


> Heh. In my first book one of my female characters tells off another one for b*tching about a third. Does that count?


Nope, don't think so. Yay for passing the test! 



LisaGraceBooks said:


> Mine pass the test, but then again I write books with some romance, but romance is not the main subject.


Yeah, I think this plagues full-on Romance novels the most. I'm really ashamed of myself that I've failed the test because I know in real life, I avoid friends whose conversations are only about their man. We women do talk about all sorts of different things! 



Nicole Castro said:


> All five of my romances pass!


Hee!  But ya just HAD to include the hot man gif, huh? Now we're talking about men again. You have made me fail...AGAIN.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Who is that man, by the way? He is kind of easy on the eye...


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## Nicole Castro (Sep 23, 2013)

Ha ha! It's Supernatural! One of the best shows ever.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

He niiiice!


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Almost everything I've written passes despite being in the infamously male-centric nerd genres. The only one that might not is unfinished and I'm not sure if a screaming argument over who murdered whose parents counts, assuming fathers are included in that.


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## Nicole Castro (Sep 23, 2013)

Lydniz said:


> Who is that man, by the way? He is kind of easy on the eye...


Jared Padalecki.

Um, I can't wait to go home and nap (NON MAN TALK).

and

am I allowed to post this?


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## brie.mcgill (Jun 5, 2013)

Does talking with one's mother...

Ordering around employees...

...or being bathed by a bunch of other chicks in a bathtub... umm... count?


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Are the bathers talking about something that isn't a man?


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

I've actually thought about this question quite a bit, given that my main series is set in a polygamist cult, where many of the men are, by definition, sexist pigs who dominate (or try to dominate) their wives and daughters. The environment makes some readers angry enough that I was afraid of falling into the trap of having my women be merely oppressed or brainwashed. It was important that they have independent friendships, conflicts, allies, and enemies within the company of their fellow women.

ETA: Some of my other books fail. I'm not particularly proud about that.


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

I have one book that fails it, and STRANGELY ENOUGH, it is one of the first books of mine that people started identifying as "feminist." Look, here is a review and lengthy discussion of that Bechdel-test-failing book from Romance Novels for Feminists: http://romancenovelsforfeminists.blogspot.com/2012/10/behind-every-good-rake-review-of_2.html

There is a second short story that passes it by virtue of a half-page conversation with a maid.

I think the Bechdel test is an interesting test, but the real question is, "Are your women acting like human beings, and not like male accessories?" You can pass the Bechdel test and still not treat women like human beings. You can fail it, and still be ardently feminist. It's not a very good test.


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## Tim_A (May 25, 2013)

Yes, mine passes


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## MsTee (Jul 30, 2012)

Nicole Castro said:


> Jared Padalecki.
> 
> Um, I can't wait to go home and nap (NON MAN TALK).
> 
> ...


I was about to fangirl squee when I realised you've just set another trap.  Hard as it may be, I WILL ignore shirtless Jared Padalecki. I WILL! 



brie.mcgill said:


> Does talking with one's mother...
> 
> Ordering around employees...
> 
> ...or being bathed by a bunch of other chicks in a bathtub... umm... count?


To echo Vaalingrade: while they're soaping each other up, are they going on about who got dumped and why it's OK and how they should find another tentacle billionaire vampire fella to assuage the pain of being single?!?



MichaelWallace said:


> I've actually thought about this question quite a bit, given that my main series is set in a polygamist cult, where many of the men are, by definition, sexist pigs who dominate (or try to dominate) their wives and daughters. The environment makes some readers angry enough that I was afraid of falling into the trap of having my women be merely oppressed or brainwashed. It was important that they have independent friendships, conflicts, allies, and enemies within the company of their fellow women.
> 
> ETA: Some of my other books fail. I'm not particularly proud about that.


But at least you've saved yourself with your other work(s) - a lot better than what I've done!


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## KaryE (May 12, 2012)

Flight of the Kikayon - pass. Lots of non-man talk and other interaction between a mother-daughter-grand/daughter triad.

The Minder's Bond - fail. There's only one woman. Then again, it's a crucible story where male MC and female MC are locked in a sitch and have to escape it.

First Call - pass. Good stuff with female mentor to female mentee, plus a girlchild.

For Tomorrow We Diet - pass. Female patient to female doctor.

My one objection to this test is that something like _The Belle of Amherst_ fails as there's only one character. Ditto any story where there are only two characters unless both are female.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Nicole Castro said:


> Jared Padalecki.
> 
> Um, I can't wait to go home and nap (NON MAN TALK).
> 
> ...


Hubba, and moreover, hubba.

I am failing all my PC tests.


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## Guest (Sep 26, 2013)

Fire Season passes, but Standing Guard fails - it's only got one female character, but then the aircraft crew is very limited. If I'd left in their return to base, it would have passed. Going Under passes with flying colours, but it is easier with a female lead.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Lydniz said:


> Who is that man, by the way? He is kind of easy on the eye...


Your post just failed the test...


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

I'm batting about .500.

Most Likely passes the test by a significant margin.

Shada does as well.

Both are longer books that have female MCs, though, so I'd hope they pass...

However, with my shorts...

There's only one female character who plays any role at all in Under Contract

I don't think there's a major female character at all in The Devohrah Initiative, only a couple ancillary characters. They never meet.

But both short stories are fairly brief and focus on male MCs, so....


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## Vivienne Mathews (May 7, 2013)

I tried to make it a point to have equal representation of males and females in my junior fiction books because I wanted to show kids a world where that didn't matter, where a female character didn't stand out simply by being female. When I was a kiddo, I remember lamenting that (unless the book was one _specifically _written for a female audience) girls didn't seem to be an important part of most stories. Maybe I'm just compensating for the paucity of heroines in my childhood by having created a world where there are no restrictive gender roles, where people are people (er... animals, in this case), where they do what needs to be done and say what needs to be said regardless of what is considered proper. Admittedly, there are still a few more guys than gals on the good ship _Albatross_, but they're placed evenly in leadership roles... and at no point do any of them cook, care-take, bemoan their relationship status, or involve themselves in plots to increase their social standing.

That said, what I write on the side (the stuff that actually sells), only _just _scrapes by on the Bechdel test. I am so ashamed of me.


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## brendajcarlton (Sep 29, 2012)

Very definite pass.


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

The criteria seem rather ambiguous. Does the test demand the women be the only participants in the scene? Then my books fail, because both are written in first person and the main character in each is a guy. But if conversations merely involving two women and at any point talking about something other than a guy (or guy issues in general) count for anything, then I've managed this in both. But not because I tried; that would be stupid.

This test is ironically every bit as shallow as the problem it seeks to take down, namely that some authors see women as nothing more than gossipy props.

I'd like to propose other tests instead.

Zombie test: Are there zombies in any form? (1/2)
Rocket test: Does the book involve a rocket ship? (0/2)
Flibbetygibbet: Does a character use this word? (0/2)
Ninjas: I can has one? (1/2)
Car chase test: Yes, please! (1/2)
Q test: Does any character's name contain a Q? (1/2)
Vampire shark tank: Is the book about an escape artist named Charlie who is also openly a vampire? (0/2)

Oh wait, those are all stupid tests too.


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## Dee Ernst (Jan 10, 2011)

All of mine pass!


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## Michael Buckley (Jun 24, 2013)

1000% impossible to please all your readers. If you write a book on war someone will tell you that you are not being kind to the enemy. It is better to write the story and please as many as you can. If the others complain hopefully next time they will not buy your book.

I sent out a new release to my whole two mail list subscribers. It was an all ages Santa story. I think I made a mistake, they were looking for dystopian and I sent out Santa  Banging head on the wall as I type.

Most of my books do not pass.


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## brie.mcgill (Jun 5, 2013)

> while they're soaping each other up, are they going on about who got dumped and why it's OK and how they should find another tentacle billionaire vampire fella to assuage the pain of being single?!?


The vampire blood-drinking half-alien billionaire ordered her bath while keeping her captive... but the girls don't speak much because all his attendants are vying for his love and he prefers his women not to speak.










I wonder, if I wrote with a man's name, would I be flamed as just another sci-fi author keeping women down? To some extent, tropes sell for a reason.

As a woman, I find it boring to write about other women. But it's possible to fail the test with awesomely developed characters if the book involves romance, or a small cast.

Interesting test, though.


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## BellaRoccaforte (May 26, 2013)

what about if they are talking about murder, but the victim happens to be a man? But he wasn't a love interest. If that counts I'm cool!


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## L.C. Candar (Sep 25, 2012)

Eve fails miserably. 
There are two women.
They are talking, sort of...
...but it's about the man getting murdered or not by one of them XD And then, there is the crowbar issue... 

But my WIP Where angels break has talking heads girls! Do I get the cookies now?


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## kurzon (Feb 26, 2011)

Courtney Milan said:


> I think the Bechdel test is an interesting test, but the real question is, "Are your women acting like human beings, and not like male accessories?" You can pass the Bechdel test and still not treat women like human beings. You can fail it, and still be ardently feminist. It's not a very good test.


The test is not designed to display how feminist a work is. The test is designed to make people realise that a very large proportion of creative work does not meet this very minor criteria.

All my books pass, but all my books have a female POV character. It's a lot harder to pass if you have only a male POV character.


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## ChrisWard (Mar 10, 2012)

I have two that discuss the best way to hang from the side of a train moving at high speed, then two others who discuss the best way to kill each other. Job done ...


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## Hildred (Sep 9, 2012)

What men?


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

The books in my series pass. The other two, not so much.


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## L.C. Candar (Sep 25, 2012)

kurzon said:


> It's a lot harder to pass if you have only a male POV character.


Or if your only female character is the only sane female survivor in the area XD


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

A little over a third of my published works passes. Those that don't pass usually have only one female character. But then, a lot of what I write is short fiction, where the number of characters and thus the chances for interaction among those characters is limited.

Interestingly, I also have several stories which would fail the reverse test, i.e. there are no two named male characters talking to each other about something other than a woman. Like Andrea said, it often comes down to whether the POV character is male or female.


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## Michael Kingswood (Feb 18, 2011)

Yes.

But it's a completely stupid test, anyway.


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

kurzon said:


> The test is not designed to display how feminist a work is. The test is designed to make people realise that a very large proportion of creative work does not meet this very minor criteria.
> 
> All my books pass, but all my books have a female POV character. It's a lot harder to pass if you have only a male POV character.


It wasn't designed that way--but it is used that way so often and repeatedly that it needs to be said.

Go take a look at people bashing Pacific Rim for failing the Bechdel Test--as if the fact that Mako Mori is a fully realized person with ambitions and a backstory that is given equal screen time to the story of her male co-lead is irrelevant.


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## Vivienne Mathews (May 7, 2013)

kurzon said:


> The test is not designed to display how feminist a work is. The test is designed to make people realise that a very large proportion of creative work does not meet this very minor criteria.


^This. Asking the question(s) after a gender swap would be patently absurd, like asking how many films accurately portrayed the sky as blue, or night as dark. What work or body of works houses more than a single male character who talks to other male characters about something other than women? All of them.

The Bechdel test isn't about pleasing readers or film viewers or consumers of any media type. It isn't about bashing or applauding the creator of any work for the way in which they view women. It's about highlighting the more insidious problem of microaggressions -- the unspoken invalidation of girls and women as important parts of society. The lenses through which kids see the world are more influenced by repetitive subtleties than by big events. And the constant portrayal of civilization as a place where problems are solved, missions are undertaken, friendships forged, and everyday functions carry on with absolutely no effort or input from the fairer sex? That can leave any young gal believing her input is neither necessary nor wanted, that her only worth is found in her marriageability.

To each their own in what we create. I respect and admire everyone here -- and I know bloody well that their works, regardless of whether they pass this test or not, are making someone very happy even as we speak. I don't think everyone needs to twist their tales to combat the problem. (A lot of books would be ill-served by any attempt to meet the criteria. _I Am Legend_, anyone?) But I do think that we, as producers of media, have something of an obligation to be aware of the under-representation of half of the population within that media. And that, I believe, is the point of the test.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Courtney Milan said:


> Go take a look at people bashing Pacific Rim for failing the Bechdel Test--as if the fact that Mako Mori is a fully realized person with ambitions and a backstory that is given equal screen time to the story of her male co-lead is irrelevant.


Pacific Rim was awesome for many reasons, including this one. Mako was great.


Spoiler



The lack of explicit romance between her and Christian Grey was fantastic - it came across as more of a deep friendship bond to me, and it was so refreshing.


 I can't remember the last time I saw a Hollywood movie with so many non-white people in it. But


Spoiler



why did all the other awesome Jaeger pilots have to die so fast? Whyyyy?


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## MsTee (Jul 30, 2012)

Courtney Milan said:


> I have one book that fails it, and STRANGELY ENOUGH, it is one of the first books of mine that people started identifying as "feminist." Look, here is a review and lengthy discussion of that Bechdel-test-failing book from Romance Novels for Feminists: http://romancenovelsforfeminists.blogspot.com/2012/10/behind-every-good-rake-review-of_2.html
> 
> There is a second short story that passes it by virtue of a half-page conversation with a maid.
> 
> I think the Bechdel test is an interesting test, but the real question is, "Are your women acting like human beings, and not like male accessories?" You can pass the Bechdel test and still not treat women like human beings. You can fail it, and still be ardently feminist. It's not a very good test.


OT, but - Courtney, your books are awesome and so I hardly care if you failed. *guilt-free* 



Vivienne Mathews said:


> The Bechdel test isn't about pleasing readers or film viewers or consumers of any media type. It isn't about bashing or applauding the creator of any work for the way in which they view women. It's about highlighting the more insidious problem of microaggressions -- the unspoken invalidation of girls and women as important parts of society.


^ This is what I (sort of) assumed the Bechdel Test to...err...test. For me, it's more about examining whether your female characters (especially the side ones) are only as valid as long as the attention is focussed on the male MC. So, when I re-read my stuff where the only time I introduce a female side character is to either encourage or dissuade the female MC to 'go after her man' (so to speak), I feel ashamed of myself. It's definitely something I want to rectify in my future writing.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Well, of the two leading ladies in my WIP, one's a lesbian, so she sure as hell ain't gonna be talking about men. BUT, she does talk to the MC about women. I think the rule needs to have some provisions for the GLB writers.


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## Eric Zawadzki (Feb 4, 2011)

Courtney Milan said:


> It wasn't designed that way--but it is used that way so often and repeatedly that it needs to be said.
> 
> Go take a look at people bashing Pacific Rim for failing the Bechdel Test--as if the fact that Mako Mori is a fully realized person with ambitions and a backstory that is given equal screen time to the story of her male co-lead is irrelevant.


I saw an interesting essay proposing the "Mako Mori Test" as an alternative or complimentary test to Bechdel. The upshot of MMT is: "Is there at least one female character who has a fully developed character arc of her own that isn't about supporting a man's story?" As with Bechdel, it's not a "how feminist is your story" test so much as a test to see if you can at least be bothered to give one of your female characters her own story.

Kingmaker fails Bechdel and only maybe manages MMT. One of the female characters definitely has her own coming-of-age story going on around the edges in the book, but it could be argued she's supporting the male POV character's story.

Lesson passes both, but it has buckets of characters involved in the action and the society doesn't have rigid gender roles.

Nosamae Ascending (which we're wrapping up for release at the end of the year) has a female lead and almost exclusively female POV characters. It passes both pretty easily.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

ElHawk said:


> All mine pass, but no surprise, given that two of them are about a woman who is Pharaoh. And so will be two more.


Hatshepsut?


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

All of my books have always passed.

And still, I find this test to be ridiculous. It's not a test, it's a _commentary_ on certain kinds of fiction -- i.e. male oriented fiction with token women characters. But you know, that test doesn't really say anything about the sexist or non-sexist content of the story.

For instance, a story about the first woman in an all male world. She could reasonably be the only female character in it. A story about two female cops who have caught a male serial killer. They are focused on the case and so yeah, they only talk about him.

It's a fine joke for reminding people not to have token characters. But stories aren't about agendas. They're about people.

Camille


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## sarracannon (Apr 19, 2011)

I was going to try to make a relevant post, but then someone went and posted a shirtless pic of Sam. And now I can't concentrate


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

Vivienne Mathews said:


> To each their own in what we create. I respect and admire everyone here -- and I know bloody well that their works, regardless of whether they pass this test or not, are making someone very happy even as we speak. I don't think everyone needs to twist their tales to combat the problem. (A lot of books would be ill-served by any attempt to meet the criteria. _I Am Legend_, anyone?) But I do think that we, as producers of media, have something of an obligation to be aware of the under-representation of half of the population within that media. And that, I believe, is the point of the test.


Throwing light on the issue is all well and good, but it's not even general enough to do that admirably. It'd be darned easy to write the ultimate false negative, a book where the female characters meet all the time over coffee and do nothing but discuss shoes, then drive off while applying makeup. Such a book would be terribly received, and deservedly so--unless George Berger wrote it, because he likes to take on these kinds of crazy challenges and he'd somehow find a way to make it work.

Misogyny in a book has jack nothing to do with whether or not it contains a scene with two women talking about something other than a guy. That's what makes it such a stupid test.


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## kurzon (Feb 26, 2011)

_Pacific Rim_ is an interesting example.

I think Mako is a great, kick-*ss character, and I enjoyed the movie a lot, but Mako edges very close to things like the most recent _Bioshock_ game and _The Last of Us_, both of which have been lauded for focusing on this fantastic strong female character - a character who is basically simply the focus of the male father figure's story.

Mako is "the girl" in Stacker Pentecost's story and also "the girl" in Raleigh Becket's story. She does have her own story, but that story is about her relationship with her adoptive father and being able to get over trauma to drift with Raleigh. I do think it is enough of her own story to be her own story, but only just.

Mako also comes close to being the "only girl" (given that we don't hear a lot of words coming out of any other female's mouth). The Bechdel test can be applied to a whole heap of movies because a whole heap of movies have any number of male main characters and one main female character (who generally has no visible mother, sisters, female friends and female colleagues). So I wouldn't say that it's inappropriate to apply the Bechdel to _Pacific Rim_. I don't think it makes it a bad movie, just yet another movie where this interaction doesn't happen. It's not a question of whether she's a good or bad character, it's that she's Smurfette.

People on Tumblr are having a great time writing comics where the other Jaeger pilots survive and, y'know, have dialogue and stuff.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

How about if they're talking about clothes, or babies, or cooking?

My books pass anyway, because I write genre romance, so there's plenty of planning and discussing the secondary issues. 

But I think romance, by definition, is about a woman's opinion about a man (and vice versa), so obviously you're going to probably skip the bits where the characters complaining about work, talking about her afternoon at the gym, or whatever her other interests are.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Lummox JR said:


> Misogyny in a book has jack nothing to do with whether or not it contains a scene with two women talking about something other than a guy. That's what makes it such a stupid test.


Bingo!

Here's what the Bechtel "test" is good for: It's an "I want something different" test. Then it makes complete sense. It's like when Marian Zimmer Bradley wrote in her magazine that she was tired of Dragons and Unicorns. She said "I never see any heroic fantasy about cows. I want to see that."

As a standard to measure all fiction, it's moronic: that's just a call for uniformity. But as a call for something that scratches an itch, it makes sense -- but only within certain genres at certain times. That's the thing about something like this. About the time that someone says "I don't see enough X in my genre" a whole bunch of people who feel the same way are already writing it.

Camille


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

Seems like a pretty limited sort of test.

Mine portrays a teenager who starts off obsessed with another's boyfriend, but soon finds herself in a desperate situation with a group of girls, where boy-talk is definitely not on the menu. Most conversations between females in all my books are not about boys/men. But then, my books fall in the Gothic horror genre. I imagine if I wrote a romance, I'd far more likely write such conversations in?

What I most despair about is movies. Seldom are women just people in movies - they are so often playing roles.


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## Vivienne Mathews (May 7, 2013)

Lummox JR said:


> Misogyny in a book has jack nothing to do with whether or not it contains a scene with two women talking about something other than a guy.


Very true, but this test isn't about misogyny. It's about under-representation. It's meant to be a reminder to creators to recognize the disparity in male/female inclusiveness.










You're very right in mentioning that a work can pass this test with little effort. What's remarkable is that so few actually _do _pass it. That reality, and the fact that this silly test can bring out the diverse views and frustrations in a thread such as this, proves that it is anything but silly.


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## Guest (Sep 27, 2013)

Let's see ...

GENESIS EARTH: Fails, but it also comes pretty close to failing the reverse Bechdel test.  There is more than one female character.
BRINGING STELLA HOME: Passes.
DESERT STARS: Passes.
STARS OF BLOOD AND GLORY: Passes easily.
STAR WANDERERS:
  PART I: OUTWORLDER: Fails, but also fails the reverse Bechdel test.
  PART II: FIDELITY: Does talking in another language count?  If not, only passes level 2.
  PART III: SACRIFICE: Same as above.
  PART IV: HOMEWORLD: Same as above.
  PART V: DREAMWEAVER: Fails, but also fails the reverse Bechdel test.
  PART VI: BENEFACTOR: Passes.
  PART VII: REPROACH: Passes.

In general, if one of my viewpoint characters is female, it's probably going to pass.  If that isn't the case, it probably also fails the reverse Bechdel test (at least two men who talk about something other than a woman).


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

Mine pass. In fact, I don't think any of my female characters talk to each other about men. Ghosts, homicidal tendencies, possession, the economy, handcuffs and curses, yes... boyfriends, not so much.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

Hmmm, Magical Roads passes the test, it has a scene where my MC talks to her mother about a baby dragon and her future, her own baby dragon, who is male, but he is a baby so I don't think it counts.

Black Sheep... Doesn't pass it. Though that is not weird seeing as it's a gay fiction and the reason some characters talk to each other is because of my male MCs. Even though I have a scene between two sisters who talk about their younger brothers (who are the main couple). It doesn't pass though...

Disturbed Fate passes, but just barely. The MC's mum and female best friend talk about a dress with the MC, his boyfriend and his male best friend in the room. It's not really a long scene though.

Disturbed Connections doesn't pass. Plain and simple. I don't even have female characters in the story. This being a gay romance story, I also didn't want to write two in just for kicks.

My stories do all pass the Vito Russo test (see wiki page about bechdel test: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test#Derived_tests) and also all pass the "gay bechdel test": two gay guys who talk to teach other about something else but another man.

Also, about the bechdel test, I've always heard the first rule as "two women with names" aka. They can't be two faceless women who are just randomly put into the story to pass the test.


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## Jeroen Steenbeeke (Feb 3, 2012)

They all pass. Gift of the Destroyer was the most likely candidate for failing since there are only two significant female characters that the protagonist has actual conversations with, and the first of those conversations concerns the fact that the protagonist is pregnant, and concerns the father of the child as well.

They all pass the reverse test as well.


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## Natasha Holme (May 26, 2012)

So, mine passes easily as the main characters are lesbians. But it is not fiction, it is a true story. Did Bechdel say it has to apply only to fiction?


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## Jeroen Steenbeeke (Feb 3, 2012)

NatashaHolme said:


> So, mine passes easily as the main characters are lesbians. But it is not fiction, it is a true story. Did Bechdel say it has to apply only to fiction?


I think it originally applied to movies.

Either way, perhaps the Vito Russo test is more appropriate for your work:


The film contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender.
The character must not be solely or predominantly defined by their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The character must be tied into the plot in such a way that their removal would have a significant effect.

Replace film by book where appropriate ;-) Of course, since it isn't fiction, I think it would be an auto-pass.


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## Rachel Macwhirter (May 29, 2013)

vrabinec said:


> Well, of the two leading ladies in my WIP, one's a lesbian, so she sure as hell ain't gonna be talking about men. BUT, she does talk to the MC about women. I think the rule needs to have some provisions for the GLB writers.


The test was invented by and named after a lesbian. It's simply designed to point out the sheer number of stories that are dominated by mean - really nothing to do with romance! Though if you wanted a version dealing with heteronormativity, I suppose you could change it to 'two LGBT+ people talk have a conversation about something that isn't a straight person' 

Making very sure to pass the Bechdel test with every one of my books. Now that I'm thinking about the LGBT+ test version, I technically pass it in the first book, but I'm not giving myself the credit when it's not obvious that the characters in question are not in fact straight.

I'll shoot for next book on that.


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## Natasha Holme (May 26, 2012)

Jeroen Steenbeeke said:


> perhaps the Vito Russo test is more appropriate for your work:
> 
> 
> The film contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender.
> ...


I'd not heard of this, Jeroen, thanks. I'm a big fail on 1 and 2. It's all about sexuality angst.


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## Selina Fenech (Jul 20, 2011)

I read this thread, and then I watched Parks and Rec, and Parks and Rec wins at this test.


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## Graeme Reynolds (Jul 8, 2012)

I had a review of my last horror novel state that I passed the test with flying colours. Truth be told, if not for that review, I'd have had no idea what it even was 

http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2013/04/27/high-moor-2-moonstruck-by-graeme-reynolds/


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## Annette_g (Nov 27, 2012)

Not sure, it's been a while since I re-read them  I think The Chosen passes. It's a male/male romance, but women are the prince's bodyguards, a group called Daughters of the Sword, who are in effect married to their sword and leave if they want to get married and have children etc. Not much talking about men with them, LOL!


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

I guess two women making out with each other fails the test because they're not talking.


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## brendajcarlton (Sep 29, 2012)

> Either way, perhaps the Vito Russo test is more appropriate for your work:
> 
> The film contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender.
> The character must not be solely or predominantly defined by their sexual orientation or gender identity.
> The character must be tied into the plot in such a way that their removal would have a significant effect.


Nope. Zero gay people. Also no native Hawaiians, no Amish, no dwarves (I did meet an Amish dwarf once, but I haven't put her in a book), no paraplegics or no Cajuns. You can't put one of everything in every book.


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## sabrinaedwards_words (Jul 8, 2013)

My book Saturday actually does pass the test!  Although the two women immediately have sex with the man, but they do not talk about him at all.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Well, fine, I've had it with under-representation, too:

I don't read anything that doesn't meet the following criteria:

1. It has to have at least two nerds in it (guys, gals, or any combo thereof... I'm not picky)
2. who talk to someone other than each other (other nerds do not count)
3. about something besides sci-fi, comic books, or electronics.

Ha! Take that, Big Bang Theory!


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## Redbloon (Mar 27, 2013)

My first one fails but my second passes - despite both being full on romances.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Well, fine, I've had it with under-representation, too:
> 
> I don't read anything that doesn't meet the following criteria:
> 
> ...


Disturbed Fate passes that test! And that is the only one in which I've got nerds 

I also pass the paranormal creatures test 
1. It has to have at least 2 paranormal creatures in it
2. who talk to a each other
3. about something besides being paranormal or paranormal gifts

Both Disturbed Fate and Disturbed Connections pass that  Plus... Magical Roads also passes it (opening story has two psychics and they talk about school  )


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## Guest (Sep 27, 2013)

I'll forever read the subject of this thread as "The Bechamel Test." Can't help myself.

Myriad and High Witch fail, from what I can recall. Both are mostly from a man's POV though. Tanner and Witch Emerging pass, although Tanner only just (again mostly told from a man's POV.) Oh, well.


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## erikhanberg (Jul 15, 2011)

My mystery, The Saints Go Dying doesn't pass, though the rest of my novels do. There's a reason for that: I read about the test early, and was dismayed to see that it didn't pass. The later books do, and I think they are richer for it. Even though it's a simple test, passing it makes for a more interesting book.

I'm surprised at how many people think it's a stupid test. My argument for why it's not: so many books fail it. No, I'm not indicting authors whose books fail it, but I think it should serve writers to look at the kind of stories they are choosing to tell, or the kinds of characters in those stories.

Half of the people on the planet are women. And yet historically, their stories are un- or under-represented in fiction (not to mention in history itself).

No single author is going to change that, obviously. And not ever story needs to pass like this is some kind of litmus test--we would all be at a loss if _The Shawshank Redemption_ wasn't made because it doesn't pass.

But I think it should be sometime in the back of a writer's mind.


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## brendajcarlton (Sep 29, 2012)

[quoteWell, fine, I've had it with under-representation, too:

I don't read anything that doesn't meet the following criteria:

1. It has to have at least two nerds in it (guys, gals, or any combo thereof... I'm not picky)
2. who talk to someone other than each other (other nerds do not count)
3. about something besides sci-fi, comic books, or electronics.

Ha! Take that, Big Bang Theory!][/quote]

Don't even get me started on the "let's all mock the geniuses (the people who invent the lifesaving drugs and new devices) trope."


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## David Adams (Jan 2, 2012)

_Lacuna_ passes, because Liao and Cheung talk about war together.

_The Sands of Karathi_ passes, because Liao and Saara talk about Ben's possible betrayal (Ben is a construct, a spider-robot, so there's literally nothing sexual in it at all).

_The Spectre of Oblivion_ passes, because Saara and Liao talk about how humanity is doomed to fail against the Toralii (and Saara chokes her with a table (no really)).

_Ren of Atikala_ passes, because Ren and Tzala talk about what it means to be a leader.

_Insufficient_ passes, because Turner and Sinclair talk about the airlock together.

_Shear Terror_ fails because there's only one female character with no spoken lines.

_Rakshasa, Book I_ passes because Aurora discovers the Garden of Shadow with Asena. Although she does talk to Katelyn about boys, so...

_Rakshasa, Book II_ so far fails, but it's only two and a half bits in.


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## Rob Lopez (Jun 19, 2012)

My WIP doesn't pass the test, but there's a good reason for that:

I just couldn't care less about Bechdel or her test. Or any others, for that matter.

I'm done with the whole _I must include a strong female/black/brown/LGBT/PTSD/ROTFLOL person in my work, and this is how they must act/be/speak_.

If my story is about one of those people, then I'll write them in. If it's not, I'm not going to force it. In the end, it depends on the market I'm writing for and the feel of the story that's running through my head. I'm tired of reading these prescriptions. They're the fastest way to writer's block and I don't need more anxiety in my already anxious writing attempts.



erikhanberg said:


> I'm surprised at how many people think it's a stupid test. My argument for why it's not: so many books fail it.


That's a rubbish reason for why it's not stupid. How about I invent a test to see whether enough books have characters who pick their noses in private and stuff muffins up their anus in public? But it can't be a stupid test, because so many books fail it, right?


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## Seanathin23 (Jul 24, 2011)

Only one of my books passes, well I have an unfinished WIP that probably would. My problem is just not having enough female characters around. I'm thinking the one I am working on now will pass though.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Nicole Castro said:


> Jared Padalecki.
> 
> Um, I can't wait to go home and nap (NON MAN TALK).
> 
> ...


Yes, you are allowed. You are encouraged. In fact, you are hereby _ordered_ to post more of the hunkalicious JarPad. *sigh*is-it-hot-in-here?*


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Jeroen Steenbeeke said:


> Either way, perhaps the Vito Russo test is more appropriate for your work:
> 
> 
> The film contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender.
> ...


Descendants not only passes, but the character in question is being featured in the currently updating issue.



CraigInTwinCities said:


> I don't read anything that doesn't meet the following criteria:
> 
> 1. It has to have at least two nerds in it (guys, gals, or any combo thereof... I'm not picky)
> 2. who talk to someone other than each other (other nerds do not count)
> 3. about something besides sci-fi, comic books, or electronics.


Also passed, both series.

Descendants: Warrick is a multi-fandom nerd and his girlfriend, Christina is a science nerd. They talk to many people about many things.

Rune Breaker - There is no way that Ru could NOT be considered something of a magic otaku (and otaku of magic, not an otaku who IS magic, though he is that too) and Kaiel is a history geek.



Kia Zi Shiru said:


> I also pass the paranormal creatures test
> 1. It has to have at least 2 paranormal creatures in it
> 2. who talk to a each other
> 3. about something besides being paranormal or paranormal gifts


Descendants passes in a bunch of areas. Returned gods, elves, yellow world entities, etc.

Rune Breaker fails unless run of the mill spellcasters or common races can count as paranormal beings.


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## emilynemchick (Sep 25, 2013)

My book passes the test... but only kind of. Does it count of a woman is talking to another woman about killing a man?


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## Sandra K. Williams (Jun 15, 2013)

The Bechdel test is a useful way that readers can determine if they'll be interested in a book. If a writer mocks the Bechdel test, I can be pretty sure I won't be interested in that author's books. I might not have been interested anyway because of the subject matter, but...


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

I pass too, mosty because I write young adult science fiction adventures with strong female protagonists.


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## emilynemchick (Sep 25, 2013)

> I pass too, mosty because I write young adult science fiction adventures with strong female protagonists.


Sorry to go off topic. Just wanted to say I love your covers, H. S. St. Ours!


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## Nicole Castro (Sep 23, 2013)

Jena H said:


> Yes, you are allowed. You are encouraged. In fact, you are hereby _ordered_ to post more of the hunkalicious JarPad. *sigh*is-it-hot-in-here?*


He is darn fit, isn't he? You may be interested in my Pinterest boards... http://www.pinterest.com/nicolecastro114/boards/


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Kitten said:


> I'll forever read the subject of this thread as "The Bechamel Test." Can't help myself.


LOL. Me too!


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Sandra K. Williams said:


> The Bechdel test is a useful way that readers can determine if they'll be interested in a book. If a writer mocks the Bechdel test, I can be pretty sure I won't be interested in that author's books. I might not have been interested anyway because of the subject matter, but...


I dunno. I've seen some rather fun affectionate parodies of it, especially from people who get hammered over it by people that themselves don't understand it.

Also, the mere fact that you can pass by literally having women talking about how their place is in the kitchen, or how math is hard and they should go shopping instead sort of ruins it for anything but illustrative purposes.

It's not the test that's stupid, it's that people keep trying to use it for something it's not.


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## RMHuffman (Apr 1, 2013)

I write in the classical style of Greek theater, so all of my female characters are actually men in drag speaking in falsetto. Does this test even apply to me?


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## Michael Murray (Oct 31, 2011)

MsTee said:


> What is the Bechdel Test? A snippet from this Wikipedia article says:
> 
> Upon a re-read of _all_ of my written works (even fanfic!), I have FAILED this test with flying, frisbeeing, sky-diving colours!
> 
> What about the rest of you? *totally looking at all you Chick Lit / Romance Comedy / New Adult writers*


In TGOTD a woman and a young girl talk about catching lobsters, and then that woman and the girl's mother (a retired reverse-engineering expert) talk about a mysterious device that various groups are trying to kill the first woman to get hold of.


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## erikhanberg (Jul 15, 2011)

I agree that people are using the test in ways it was not intended. It is to look for a female "presence." As the Wikipedia article states, a work can still be sexist, even if it passes.

A huge number of popular works fail this test, and I think that's a problem. I don't think it's "rubbish." I don't think this as a random test like testing for nerds, zombies, or supernatural things. Women's right to vote in the US is not even 100 years old. Jane Austen had to publish under a man's pseudonym. Joanna Rowling was forced by her publisher to publish as JK because they thought it would see more books.

I don't think all of those things are unrelated from having (far) more men in fiction than women. We can argue about the merits of the specific Bechtel test, but it should highlight the bigger issue.


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## Nicole Castro (Sep 23, 2013)

Monique said:


> LOL. Me too!


Me three.


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## Dan Fiorella (Oct 14, 2012)

Lummox JR said:


> I'd like to propose other tests instead.
> 
> Zombie test: Are there zombies in any form? (1/2)
> Rocket test: Does the book involve a rocket ship? (0/2)
> ...


Maybe we should grade on a curve?


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

emilynemchick said:


> Sorry to go off topic. Just wanted to say I love your covers, H. S. St. Ours!


Why thanks, Emily. And for the record, I don't think that's off topic at all!


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

Joss Whedon said:


> _Q: So, why do you write these strong female characters?_
> A: Because you're still asking me that question.


There's been plenty of discussion about exceptions to these tests, and I wouldn't argue that they don't exist. I still think that tests like these can be handy for anybody who's been raised in a male-dominated, heteronormative culture. I certainly fall in that category. Guessing everybody else here does as well. It doesn't mean that your work is wrongbadfun if it fails the letter of either test, but you should wonder _why,_ and be able to say something articulate about it.

Instead of thinking of it as a prescriptive roadmap, think of it as a way to check your work. One of the plots I'm starting to tease into an outline involves a lesbian protagonist who winds up in hot water after sleeping with a subordinate. My plan was always to focus on the professional ramifications and ignore gender altogether. I think that if I do that successfully, it's a Russo test pass. It'll certainly be a Bechdel pass, because the only two named characters in the story so far are women who're bound to have serious conversations about their work.

So what? Did I need the tests to get there? No. I still think it's an interesting tool for checking my work. If I'd been planning another approach from the outset, the tests might've prompted me to consider a new direction. Could've been helpful, and could still be helpful on future projects. I think both tests nudge writers in the right directions.

I'd also add that I think the point about race is fair...up to a point. Ultimately we all have to pick and choose which minority groups we're going to champion, but the answer isn't to throw up our hands and disclaim any responsibility to write more inclusive stories. Turns out most humans are women. It'd be a good start if more films and books acknowledged that.


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## mrv01d (Apr 4, 2011)

Man, I'm ashamed to say how long it took me realize that, yes, yes I _do_ pass the test.

OMG. You'd think I could remember my own damn book, that I just went through front to back _yesterday._

Anyway, the romance genre is mostly an exception to this test imo. In general, the genre likes things focused on the hero and heroine. And I can recall reading romances with non-hero conversations and being bored b/c they weren't germane to the plot. Maybe it was just bad writing (it was a bestseller) or maybe romance needs to keep moving forward w/o a lot of detours. I don't know.

M


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Sandra K. Williams said:


> The Bechdel test is a useful way that readers can determine if they'll be interested in a book. If a writer mocks the Bechdel test, I can be pretty sure I won't be interested in that author's books. I might not have been interested anyway because of the subject matter, but...


This is the risk of anything like this.

Someone will always take it more seriously than the person who dreamed it up. Remember: Bechdel herself was a cartoonist and this "test" was part of a comic strip.

Does that mean it's not serious at all? That it doesn't make a point?

Of course it makes a worthy point. Humor and comic strips do that all the time.

But is it something worthy of swearing off all authors who don't take it seriously enough? Or considering their less-serious take as "mocking"?

I mean, I posted my "two nerds" requirements in light-hearted fashion. My basic nightmare would be if some Sheldon Cooper of the future started actually boycotting authors who didn't write books that meet "The Hansen Test."

I'd be all, like, "Sheldon, c'mon. It was a forum post. Lighten up."

And then he'd intellectually bully me into deleting all non-Hansen-Rule-compliant books from my Kindle forever because... well, because he's Sheldon Cooper and he's a lot smarter than me. 

Sheldon Coopers of the world aside, if anyone wants to swear off my books for this, or any other forum post I've ever written, that's their choice.

But I think they're be missing out on some fun reads. Especially Shada, which is basically "The Body by Stephen King, with four female leads instead of four male leads." (Kinda...)

There's not even a whole lot of mention of boys among the girls who are the focus characters of Shada.

And only one real nerd among 'em, so my own book doesn't even pass the Hansen Test.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

I don't think I have ever written a novel that would fail the test, but I never aimed at it either. To me it is just a matter of writing characters who are 'people'. If you do, the chances are they will.


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## kurzon (Feb 26, 2011)

Rob Lopez said:


> My WIP doesn't pass the test, but there's a good reason for that:
> 
> I just couldn't care less about Bechdel or her test. Or any others, for that matter.
> 
> ...


There's nothing about the Bechdel test (or others of the same sort) which implies mandatory quotas. The only purpose of the test is to take a moment's reflection about what is in a work vs reality.

Reality = over 50% of everyone is female.
Film = One Smurfette in a cast of eight other characters, all male.

If you're writing a story where all or the majority of the players are one thing, all the Bechdel test does is ask you to notice the disparity.

If you're, for instance, writing a story set in Nairobi, and all the speaking characters are white, what these tests do is say "Notice that in a city with x demographic, you're sticking to y as the 'important' people".

You don't have to choose to act on this. You can write whatever you want. You can go to whatever movies you want, and like them as much as you like. All the Bechdel is doing is saying "notice".


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

Vaalingrade said:


> I dunno. I've seen some rather fun affectionate parodies of it, especially from people who get hammered over it by people that themselves don't understand it.
> 
> Also, the mere fact that you can pass by literally having women talking about how their place is in the kitchen, or how math is hard and they should go shopping instead sort of ruins it for anything but illustrative purposes.
> 
> It's not the test that's stupid, it's that people keep trying to use it for something it's not.


I concur. It's very useful as a quick snapshot. Women, in their own right, are under-represented in film/literature.

It's not useful as a 'fix' (and isn't supposed to be a fix) because, as Vaalingrade said, two female characters can be shown saying/doing things together that are not 'important' to the plot or that are stereotypically feminine.

Women are over-represented in TV commercials (at least in Australia) and are forever yapping to each other about how clean their toilets are, how white their washing is, how sanitised their homes are, about shoe sales, about weight loss, about cosmetics, about hair products and about how they need life insurance for their husband in case he kicks the bucket.

I like this chart about female characters:

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/flowchart.jpeg


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## Rachel Macwhirter (May 29, 2013)

Sandra K. Williams said:


> The Bechdel test is a useful way that readers can determine if they'll be interested in a book. If a writer mocks the Bechdel test, I can be pretty sure I won't be interested in that author's books.


Could not have put it better myself!



Rob Lopez said:


> That's a rubbish reason for why it's not stupid. How about I invent a test to see whether enough books have characters who pick their noses in private and stuff muffins up their anus in public? But it can't be a stupid test, because so many books fail it, right?


Of course, I forgot that having female characters who exist for reasons other than being useful to men is just as absurd as using baked goods as suppositories. How silly of me.

It really isn't hard to have _just two_ female characters who have _just one_ conversation about anything in the entire world that isn't a man (source: I am a woman, I think and speak about other things). As other posters have pointed out, you can still have a male-dominated book that passes the Bechdel test, if women somehow give you writer's block. The test isn't stupid just because you personally do not like it - it points out the lack of representation that those who mock it overlook. That's all.

And your aforementioned muffin-stuffers don't need that representation.


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

I think my issue with the Bechdel Test is that it's based in part on a Virginia Woolf passage from 1929 and THE BAR STILL HASN'T MOVED. It's like the preschool test of not even equal media representation, but of like the first baby step towards it. And now it's all we're talking about. It's a TERRIBLE TEST because it's the ONLY TEST of media representation that people ever talk about. It's nearly a hundred years later and more than 70% of the media still is treating women as barely existent.

We *are* part of the media. We should be embarrassed to be talking about something this basic and ridiculous, like we haven't advanced past 1929.

Finally, I'm sorry, if you think that people who want a fair representation of women and minorities in the media are asking for something as arbitrary as including zombies, please think about what you're saying. That's a huge slap in the face to large groups of people who are silenced and erased in our world. 

It's okay for you to not be that person who includes them--but ask yourself why you're not doing it and if you can.


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## Rachel Macwhirter (May 29, 2013)

Courtney Milan said:


> It's a TERRIBLE TEST because it's the ONLY TEST of media representation that people ever talk about.


While I don't believe it makes it a terrible test, you have a great point about it being the only test talked about. Passing the Bechdel test means virtually nothing in regards to the work's overall quality and respect for women as living, breathing, thinking human beings. And I would love it if people started demanding en masse that the majority of works have a significant amount of complex female characters that are just as well written as their male counterparts.

But at the same time, the fact that the vast majority of works still fail this _extremely basic_ test is a good reason for it to exist and be talked about. Not as in something that people should aspire to be reaching, but something they should already be passing by default. It deserves to be talked about as something that, if failed, calls the work and its creator(s) into question. While I'll admit that some works have excuses for the erasure, most don't beyond ingrained misogyny.

Basically, I agree with you, except I think the test is good for pointing out the systematic sexism and erasure of mainstream (and most-other-streams ) media to those who point blank refuse to see it ninety-nine percent of the time. I think it's terrible when people hold the test up as a feminist paragon, which is never how it was intended.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

Courtney Milan said:


> I think my issue with the Bechdel Test is that it's based in part on a Virginia Woolf passage from 1929 and THE BAR STILL HASN'T MOVED. It's like the preschool test of not even equal media representation, but of like the first baby step towards it. And now it's all we're talking about. It's a TERRIBLE TEST because it's the ONLY TEST of media representation that people ever talk about. It's nearly a hundred years later and more than 70% of the media still is treating women as barely existent.
> 
> We *are* part of the media. We should be embarrassed to be talking about something this basic and ridiculous, like we haven't advanced past 1929.


Yes, well I think that's the problem. We haven't come much further than we were in 1929. It's still common to find work that fails the Bechdel Test, and it sounds like many authors in this thread have struggled to pass it (granted some of them have what sound like perfectly legitimate explanations).

Bechdel isn't enough. It's also not yet a given, so I'd say it's still relevant.

Is there a more demanding test that you'd propose? Where would you set the bar?


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Rachel Macwhirter said:


> But at the same time, the fact that the vast majority of works still fail this _extremely basic_ test is a good reason for it to exist and be talked about. Not as in something that people should aspire to be reaching, but something they should already be passing by default. It deserves to be talked about as something that, if failed, calls the work and its creator(s) into question. While I'll admit that some works have excuses for the erasure, most don't beyond ingrained misogyny.


Well put. And no, not every book needs to or even should pass the test. There is room for all sorts of stories in the world, including ones that don't have women at all. But if none of the books you're writing pass the test and if you look around and see that tons of books in your genre also fail (hello, thrillers!), then this should give you pause.

And I'm sorry, but if you think that asking about fleshed out, independent female characters in books is only worthy of a crude remark about stuffing muffins up your anus, then there's something wrong with the way you look at the world. (That's the polite version of what I'm thinking.)


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## Eric Zawadzki (Feb 4, 2011)

As a white male writing in a genre that has traditionally been dominated by white male authors writing for white boys and men (high fantasy), I find it to be a useful test to keep me honest. When called upon to introduce a new character, it is easier by far to default to one that either shares my experience (cis, hetero, dominant-culture male) or fits existing tropes (many of which assume gender roles that don't make nearly as much sense in our imaginary worlds as some would have us believe). It is trivially easy to be more inclusive in terms of representing other groups in one's fiction, but only if you don't ignore the problem and "go with the flow." A little bit of awareness can go a long way. Whether we want to accept the role or not, as writers we help shape the culture of our genre, even if it is only in a small way.

Bechdel (and/or MMT) may not be as critical in other genres, but the geek subculture that reads high fantasy (not all fantasy readers are geeks, but many geeks are fantasy readers) has not always been as inclusive as women and minorities as it could be. In truth, it can be actively hostile to women, who are perceived as a minority even though they make up half the human population. There's really no reason why geekdom shouldn't have just as many women in it as men, but at least part of the problem is a lack of fair representation of women in the books and movies intended to target geeks. While some girls will still fall in love with the sort of "boy with a sword" books I read growing up, I don't think balance in the geek community can happen without greater and better representation of women (and minorities) in the media that targets that community - especially the young people of that community.

Bechdel isn't a gold stamp of feminism approval. It is just another writing tool - like checking each scene for "the stakes" or ensuring that I'm not forcing a character to do something unnatural for him/her because my plot depends on it. As "just another white, male fantasy author," I can't be a female voice in geekdom, but I can choose to write books that do not tell young women that they have no place in fantasy except as characters who play the same roles women have been playing in fantasy stories since the Middle Ages. That may sound ridiculously cheesy, but it's nevertheless important to me.


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## Rachel Macwhirter (May 29, 2013)

Eric Zawadzki said:


> As "just another white, male fantasy author," I can't be a female voice in geekdom, but I can choose to write books that do not tell young women that they have no place in fantasy except as characters who play the same roles women have been playing in fantasy stories since the Middle Ages..


I love this so much. What an excellent viewpoint to take.


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## AworkInProgress (Sep 5, 2013)

My current WIP has a few female characters. Two of which are significant. Though they have not a single scene together thus far so no chance for them to talk. And one is hunting the man that the other has been manipulating and controlling to meet her own needs, so I imagine they'd talk about him. Oops.


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

All of mine pass. There are shoes and clothes in min so they're never short of subjects...


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

kurzon said:


> Reality = over 50% of everyone is female.
> Film = One Smurfette in a cast of eight other characters, all male.


True. And it's a little cringe-worthy in terms of Smurfdom. Not very smurfy.

That acknowledged, I think there are exceptions to every "rule," and exceptions can be a good thing.

For example: I was watching an episode of Shark Tank tonight. *shock* On it, they did an update on a teenage female entrepreneur who, last year, landed a funding deal with Mark Cuban. She makes "body sugars" of some sort. I remembered the episode and remembered thinking "she seems like she's onto something, here."

With Mark's funding to help her out, she went from three part-time employees a year ago to 24 full-timers this year, and has already made her first million. Not a bad start for someone not even out of high school yet. She's a business genius AND a role model for young women.

But at the end of the film clip, they did a group shot of all 24 of her employees and her, and they're all women.

My wife (not me), commented, "You know, if that was a guy-owned business and he was bragging about only having guys as employees, people would be griping about it. But because she's a woman and she only employs women, everyone's gonna call her a hero."

I'd have to re-watch the episode to know for sure, but I'm pretty sure all her employees were not only women, but they were all white: no women of color that I recall, though I could be wrong. But no comments about that, because she's a female entrepreneur.

But here's the thing: I'm pretty sure she hired mostly her friends and people she knew, who she trusted to work hard for her. And by clearing her first million in under a year, she must've hired hard workers.

So... does one celebrate her achievement? Or tear her down for not having any men (and perhaps no people of color) on her staff as well?

It's one of those "the shoe is on the other foot" situations and hard to decide about.

My leaning is to celebrate her success as a young entrepreneur. She's only been in business a year and at 24 employees, she's still considered a small business. I doubt her current hiring patterns will hold true over time because she'll eventually run out of friends to hire and will need to look beyond people she knows. Check back in five to ten years when she has 300 employees and more of a track record, y'know? And that's assuming her company survives and continues to be a success.

So maybe exceptions, in her case, is a good thing.

But getting back to bringing this to one's writing: SHADA has four focus characters and none of them are male. There are three featured males and none of them is likely considered "fully developed" as characters. But that's, in part, because all three have minor roles, at best.

(There's Shada's dad, Jeni's brother, and Jeni's dad. Willow's father makes an even briefer appearance. And in one side-story chapter, there's a male MC, but it's a story told by Shada around a campfire.)

Is that reverse discrimination in storytelling? After all, just under 50 percent of all people are male, yet there's not a single major male character in Shada.

Of course not. It's just the sort of story I set out to tell... I wanted to write something that would be kinda like Stephen King's THE BODY, but with four unique gals instead of four unique guys... friends spending their final summer together before growing up and high school sent them spinning off in different directions.

So of course the focus is going to be on those four gals. (And I'm using a youngish pronoun because they are young in the story, ranging in age between 12 and 14 among 'em.) For this tale, most of the men and boys in their lives are peripheral characters. That doesn't make the story anti-male; it's just not a story about the guys.

On another story, I could focus the story on four guys, and the same thing would hold true.

Noticing disparity is one thing... letting it rule your storytelling? That's something else.

I mean, someone could take a look at Ian Fleming and rightly observe that the LGBTQ community is underrepresented in his oeuvre, and that'd be true: most characters in the James Bond novels ARE straight.

But in those novels, he wasn't setting out to represent that demographic in the first place. His MC was a particular archetype: a straight male, highly chauvinist, sexist, and a completely hedonistic and selfish womanizer who treated his suits better than women he encountered.

No one denies that's the sort of character Bond was in the novels. (The movies, especially from Timothy Dalton on, try to gentle the character up a bit and soften that. Most noticeably in the recent Skyfall installment.) But the novels remain unchanged and while that limits interest in them in some groups of readers, saying that they're fails at that is kinda like saying the Bond books are fails because there aren't enough humpback whales in them. Sure, it might be true... but did Fleming set out to represent humpback whales? Probably not. His novels are what they are, and readers either like them or they don't.



kurzon said:


> If you're writing a story where all or the majority of the players are one thing, all the Bechdel test does is ask you to notice the disparity.
> 
> If you're, for instance, writing a story set in Nairobi, and all the speaking characters are white, what these tests do is say "Notice that in a city with x demographic, you're sticking to y as the 'important' people".


I think I've covered much of this ground above. A disparity doesn't have to be a negative, it can just be the circumstances of the story one is telling.

I mean, look at something less dated than James Bond.... RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is still considered by most folks a "rippin' good action flick," and yet it violates almost exactly the disparity you're pointing out above... I lot of action in RAIDERS is set in Israel, Egypt and Arabia, but the main hero (Indy) is a white American male college professor, his love interest is a while American female, the villains are German Nazis, and the actual Egyptians, Israelis, and Arabic characters are all minor, more or less. (And let's not get into the slapstick-inspired character of Indy's guide, who reinforces a lot of negative stereotypes of "untrustworthy Arabs" and whatnot...) Yet this film came from George Lucas (story) and Steven Spielberg (director) so it's not like they're the biggest jerks in the world.

So, there's a disparity there, true. But in archaeology at that time (1930s/1940s), that's what it was like. Most of the archaeologists were foreign interlopers. Nazis WERE bad guys (and some of the most obvious ones). And "the locals" were looked down upon by both sides, more or less.

Does that mean it's not a rippin' good action flick? No. Accurate to the times, but dated a bit, though less-so than Ian Fleming.

Now, one could balance the movie out a bit by adding in a couple Arabic/Israeli/Palestinian/Egyptian key characters and giving them some screen time to be fleshed out as fully realized characters... but aside from Indy (more or less), who is fleshed out as a character in that movie? Pretty much only Indy. Because the movie isn't about the diversity, it's about action.

Does that make the movie terrible? That's in the eye of each viewer to decide for themselves.



kurzon said:


> You don't have to choose to act on this. You can write whatever you want. You can go to whatever movies you want, and like them as much as you like. All the Bechdel is doing is saying "notice".


Yup. But I'll also reiterate one of my points from an earlier post: I think some folks take the "Bechdel test" more seriously than Bechdel probably did. She was a cartoonist. She was making a point, sure: good humor often does. But I don't think she was launching a career in literary criticism when she wrote it. It was just a clever sort of thing to put in her comic strip, and it was both amusing and made a point, so it was a good bonus for her... but as a prolific cartoonist, I don't know that she spent hours or weeks thinking it over... if hers was a daily strip, she had to do six of them a week, and a two- or three-row strip on Sundays, just to stay on track.

I suspect she's just happy (as any cartoonist would be... if she's still alive... I have no idea about that) that the strip from that day is still remembered and it's become "a thing."

Keeping up that pace, and occasionally coming up with a daily strip that's remembered? Way harder than it sounds.


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## erikhanberg (Jul 15, 2011)

Craig,

I love Raiders. I love The Shawshank Redemption. No individual story is bad or good because it passes or does not pass.

Salt was a great action movie with a strong female lead, but I don't think it passes the test. Still a good movie, still featuring a [email protected]$$ female lead.

But this year the highest grossing movie, Iron Man 3, passed the test. If a major blockbuster action movie can pass, I don't think it's crazy to suggest that more stories should be able to as well. Without sacrificing the fun and the action.

It's not a litmus test. And I agree with previous commenters: it's too bad we're focusing on it, but the fact is too many stories still fail to pass.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

erikhanberg said:


> Craig,
> 
> I love Raiders. I love The Shawshank Redemption. No individual story is bad or good because it passes or does not pass.
> 
> ...


I can groove with everything you just said. 

I think the only area where we might view things slightly differently, is that it seems to me that some folks (not all, by any means, or even close to it) assume that it's a standard all books should be measured by and that more should live up to.

I'm just a tad iffy on that, because I don't think all stories, given their focus, are meant to.

I agree that you can have a kick-butt action movie that lives up to the test. But if it doesn't, does that make it a fail? Only to readers to whom "passing the Bechdel test" is important enough to, that they let it dictate their reading decisions.

Which folks are free to do.

But frankly, we're all talking about it because it was brought up by the OP... I've been hanging here in the WC for 3-4 years now, and this is maybe the second or third time I've seen it brought up.

Considering that with topics like the serial/Oxford comma come up at least once a month and sometimes more often... I'd suggest it's maybe not in the Top 10 hottest topics.

Or I could have missed a ton of other Bechdel Test threads and be all wet!  That's not out of the realm of possibility.

But as for diversity in fiction, I simply try to remember to include diverse characters when I'm casting the roles in my novels as I write them, and try to make sure they stand up to my own internal logic test.

For example, almost all of my fiction is set in Hope, Wisconsin, a fictional Wisconsin town that is more or less the analog of my small-town Minnesota upbringing, combined with five years spent living in NW Wisconsin and doing journalism there.

So, between those two similar settings, Hope is reflective of what I'm familiar with from those background experiences.

For example: SHADA features two girls who are Native American. (Lakota.) And they're there because there was a lot of that sort of diversity in those settings.

I'd be less likely to plop a large number of, say, Brazillians into that setting, because I never saw a lot of that in those settings, so it wouldn't feel organic to the story. Does that mean I'm anti-Brazilian? No, it just means that if I decide to include a Brazillian character in one of my novels, he or she may be the only Brazillian in that story because there's just not large concentrations of that people-group in those areas that I'm basing Hope off of.

And there's also a secondary concern, in this: what characters can I write about convincingly, given who I am and my relative level of experience with people like a given character type I might be considering inserting into a novel?

For example, I grew up in a town of 350. Our area had more lower and middle class families and very few in the upper class. So should I have a lot of country-club types in Hope? Probably not. And I'd have to be careful about stereotyping them, because my exposure to "the upper 1 percent" is pretty limited. Any character like that, I'd need to do more research on.

And then you get to the whole question of, if you start inserting a lot of characters who are people you've had limited exposure to personally, do you become way too self-conscious about "representing a people group," rather than letting a character be an individual in a story.

For example: I know in Hollywood since 9-11, there is sometimes hesitancy to use Islamic characters as "bad guys" because it plays into post-9/11 stereotyping and so about the only time you see it is if there's as least a fair number of "good guy" Islamic characters to "balance it out."

But then you get caught up in the "do I now have too many folks of this archetype roaming around a small Wisconsin town of about 5,000 permanent residents for it to be believable, or have I jumped the shark here?"

And then... well, you get the idea. Thinking about diversity in how you cast your novels can be good and heatlhy. But thinking about it too much can just hogtie you from getting on with the story who wanted to tell.

On the one hand, given my midwestern, mostly rural, lower middle-class upbringing, sure... as a talented writer (hopefully) I can choose to write about any sorts of characters I wish.

But let's select an archetype very much UNlike me: at random, a 20ish Cuban woman who's never lived outside of Brooklyn, and who has a drug addiction.

Can I get away with that? To an extent. But an ACTUAL 20ish Cuban woman who's never lived outside of Brooklyn might write that sort of character a whole lot more convincingly than me. Why?

I'm not in my 20s anymore and haven't been for a couple decades.

I'm not Cuban. Or a woman. Or a drug addict.

I've never remotely lived in a city the size of Brooklyn and only know life in New York by what I've seen in entertainment, which just isn't the same.

Does that mean I can't ever have a character like that at all in my work? No, I could add her in. Might even be able to do a decent job with her character if I moved her out of New York and had her experiencing like in Hope, from an outsider's perspective.

But I think the more I edged toward story elements that involved her in her own context, living in Brooklyn as part of an all-Cuban community? Well, that's where I'd feel more nervous about coming off as stupid, naive, uninformed, or perhaps even get some "-ist" labels tossed my way. 

Which, generally, I would want to avoid.

That said, I think I seek out ways to push myself as a writer. My first couple novel/novella-length works both had female MCs because I wanted to make sure I could write convincing female characters.

Most Likely succeeds in that in parts, but even now I'm not so wild about it in other respects.

I'm more pleased with Shada in that respect. And I think the parts that work show up when I forget "oh, I'm a male writer writing about pre-teen/young teen girl characters" and focused mainly on what made each of those girls unique.

Ember was the girl with creativity and secrets.

Jeni, more of the bossy leader-type.

Willow was my science nerd with tons of allergies.

And Shada was more the emotional glue of the group, trying to keep all her friends together.

When I concentrated on their interests, their personalities, their likes and dislikes, they came off as interesting characters.

When I focused too much on "OMG, they're girls! What would a girl that age do here?" then I'd write something I'd have to fix or delete later.

Because the question should always be: "Here's the situation: what would Jeni/Ember/Willow/Shada do?" Not the more distant "what would a(ny) girl that age do?"

And the whole topic makes me kind of nervous, as all this rambling probably gets across to you.

Ultimately, I guess what I'm saying is, I try to avoid going so far out of my way for that diversity that it's no longer in service to the story.

And I'm officially now falling asleep at the keyboard periodically, so it's time for me to shut up.


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## Rob Lopez (Jun 19, 2012)

kurzon said:


> Reality = over 50% of everyone is female.
> Film = One Smurfette in a cast of eight other characters, all male.
> 
> If you're writing a story where all or the majority of the players are one thing, all the Bechdel test does is ask you to notice the disparity.


No, it doesn't. The Bechdel 'test' is not about the number of women in fiction - this is to completely misunderstand Bechdel's point. And it has nothing to do with women getting the vote, as another poster put it, or any of a whole bunch of other feminist issues that are being grafted onto it.

Most Romance or women's fiction, in Bechdel's eyes, would fail the test, as you put it, because the driving force of the narrative in them is women wanting, thinking about or talking about men, with issues about men being somehow involved in the final resolution of the story.

Bechdel, as has already been pointed out, was a lesbian, so _anything_ to do with men was a massive turn off for her. She was interested in women, and women being interested in women.

The sight of heterosexual women in films who were only there for their relationship to men (as they are in both guy movies and girls movies) was therefore a source of frustration for her - or rather, for the lesbian character in the cartoon that started all this.

It was never a 'test'. It was an attempt at humour, and if you're a heterosexual woman, or man, it was at your expense (but hey, laughing at oneself is healthy, as is 'mocking' a 'test')

A whole bunch of people have blown the 'Bechdel Test' (appropriate fanfare please) out of all proportion. And like a lot of feminist issues, have forgotten, or been ignorant of, the context of their origin.



> -if women somehow give you writer's block.
> -it points out the lack of representation that those who mock it overlook.


No Rachel, they don't, and it doesn't.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Rob Lopez said:


> It was never a 'test'. It was an attempt at humour, and if you're a heterosexual woman, or man, it was at your expense (but hey, laughing at oneself is healthy, as is 'mocking' a 'test')
> 
> A whole bunch of people have blown the 'Bechdel Test' (appropriate fanfare please) out of all proportion. And like a lot of feminist issues, have forgotten, or been ignorant of, the context of their origin.


I did mention her being a working cartoonist and that this was never taken as seriously by her as it has been by those who've latched onto it as a standard for reasons of their own agenda.


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