Strong Female Characters*

[allmywires]

Yes Montero, I agree that a physically fit or trained woman would be stronger than your average man, but on average, men are stronger than women. They're built that way. If you picked ten men and ten women off the street, who'd be able to lift the most? And it is down to social factors, too: even a weaker man would be more likely to lift more than a woman because he doesn't want to be seen to be weak, which is a social factor to do with perception. That is also true.

Let me put it another way - neither the men nor women act 'stereotypically', but the way they do act would be considered as more manly. For me, honestly, the main part of it is that on the whole, they don't seem to take care in their appearance (not in the 'just don't follow fashion' way, but sometimes actually quite unpleasant way). I'm not going to say anymore because I don't think I can express myself properly here, and you're right, it's not simple.

I don't think I quite understand what you're trying to say. Are you trying to imply that all men and women act the same (depending on the social situation) and sex is irrelevant? You said:

Just get annoyed by the assumption that some people make, that all men can do technology and all women can't.
And the converse one that all men can't cook/do domestic things and all women can.

My own view based entirely on unscientific day to day observations is that some men and women have a strong technical/scientific/engineer ability (that which is assumed to be male)
some men and women have a strong domestic/cooking or linguistic ability (that which is assumed to be female)

which essentially boils down to the point that yes, everybody is different, that's a fact of life. But surely my observations of the 'stereotypes' holding true is also valid? Unless you're saying that the stereotypes aren't true and that sort of thing never happens.

 

[Kylara]

Think of users here, for example. You can't tell whether some members are male or female from their usernames. You can make guesses. If you (and I mean 'you' as in anybody) had been thinking X was a female for as long as they'd been posting, then suddenly found out they were a male, it would then change the way you read their posts and it wouldn't be because 'oh, I knew there wasn't something quite right,' it'd be because now you know they're male, so are perceiving them/their posts differently.

Haha, thet is so true Mouse, on another forum I visit I run with a different handle and we came up on this very issue: my handle is very ambi, but possibly leaning towards male (especially not knowing its origins lol) and when a topic came up where practically all the male users were agreeing one way and the female users another, I sided on the side I thought was right (the female) and was jokingly accused of betraying the gender, whereby the rest of the thread descended into chaos as I proclaimed myself female...it was so amusing and luckily I don't think I was treated any different after I was discovered to be of the female persuasion...but it is true how you read differently once you know it is a male/female doing the speaking...intriguing...and psychoanalysts about?

Haha oh and I can't cook. At all...I set fire to and exploded sausages under the grill, but I can do car stuff...yay me destroying stereotypes!

 

[Mouse]

Haha, thet is so true Mouse, on another forum I visit I run with a different handle and we came up on this very issue: my handle is very ambi, but possibly leaning towards male (especially not knowing its origins lol) and when a topic came up where practically all the male users were agreeing one way and the female users another, I sided on the side I thought was right (the female) and was jokingly accused of betraying the gender, whereby the rest of the thread descended into chaos as I proclaimed myself female...it was so amusing and luckily I don't think I was treated any different after I was discovered to be of the female persuasion...but it is true how you read differently once you know it is a male/female doing the speaking...intriguing...and psychoanalysts about?

Oh good, it did come across right!

 

[allmywires]

I was wondering if this 'strong = bitch' thing was, in fact, sexist at all and wondering if it couldn't be applied to male characters as well and then wondered what the male equivalent of 'bitch' is.

So - what is the male equivalent of the term 'bitch'? Is there one? And if there isn't why not? Suppose we saw the characteristics that we interpret as 'bitch' applied to a male character what single word term would we use to describe him?

I think the male equivalent of bitch is simply bitch - the traits are considered negative but feminine, so if you're calling a man a bitch it probably is because he's homosexual (or perceivably so) and it's at least slightly derisive.

Otherwise, in regards to someone just unpleasant, I'd say ******* is the corresponding term.

 

[mosaix]

Otherwise, in regards to someone just unpleasant, I'd say ******* is the corresponding term.

I suppose you're right.

And that leads me to think that we wouldn't always call a strong male character a ******* so this 'strong = bitch' tendency would seem to be sexist.

 

[allmywires]

I suppose you're right.

And that leads me to think that we wouldn't always call a strong male character a ******* so this 'strong = bitch' tendency would seem to be sexist.

Exactly, even though often they actually are!

 

[Kylara]

But I think that is more because people feel more comfortable saying 'bitch' than '*******', ******* has much more negative connotations I think, which makes people uncomfortable saying it with the same frequency as bitch...

 

[HareBrain]

But I think that is more because people feel more comfortable saying 'bitch' than '*******', ******* has much more negative connotations I think, which makes people uncomfortable saying it with the same frequency as bitch...

Really? I sometimes use ******* as a jokey term of abuse to a male friend; I'd never call a female friend a bitch for any reason.

 

[Kylara]

Maybe it's just because I was sent to an all girl boarding school...it was bandied around so much it almost lost all meaning and ******* was only ever heard when someone oir other lost a boyfriend or a male friend did something that was unliked...possibly a biased background though...I dislike either term myself, but can see where they are coming from...

 

[Ursa major]

The thing is, a human being can be what the word, *******, implies, i.e. illegitimate** In fact lots of ordinary, pleasant people are.







** - Although in the UK, since 1969, one can, apparently, inherit in the case of intestacy, when your parents aren't married to each other, so perhaps illegitimate isn't quite the right word.

 

[Kylara]

In that meaning of the word I'm all for it, totally fine, actually I quite enjoy that meaning, but in it's other eqaul to bitch meaning in my experience it is used less, because people are less comfortable with it, maybe because guys are more likely to retaliate against that whereas a girl will either yell back or go off on say the same about their accuser...

mayhaps "out of wedlock" Ursa?

 

[Anne Lyle]

But I think that is more because people feel more comfortable saying 'bitch' than '*******', ******* has much more negative connotations I think, which makes people uncomfortable saying it with the same frequency as bitch...

I'm with harebrain - I find "bitch" to be a stronger term of abuse than "*******". Despite going to an all-girl's school I always preferred hanging out with guys, so maybe that's how I picked up the male use of it as a term of affection!

Also, I remember watching "Bodyline", a miniseries about the 1932 Ashes tour, in which the English cricket captain complained to the Aussie captain that one of the Australian players had called him (the Englishman) a *******. The Aussie captain poked his head around the dressing-room door and yelled: "Which one of you bastards called this ******* a *******?"

 

[Kylara]

hmmm I think I'm noit explaining myself well...guys calling each others ******* is to me like how the girls I went to school with called each other bitches...I'm saying as a female, I feel less inclined to call someone a ******* than another girl a bitch, feeling that they won't take it as lightly from me (even though I too am much more of a tomboy, but an all girls boarding school is a little lacking in guys...hell I tell ye HELL) as they would a fellow male friend, and vice versa - guy calling girl a bitch much more offensive than another girl calling her a bitch...

 

[HareBrain]

Out of interest, do girls tend to go in for what might be called "affectionate abusive banter" in the same way guys do?

(Edit: I think Kylara has just pre-emptively partly answered this.)

 

[Kylara]

Yes they do, but it can very quickly get out of hand on a slight (often imagined) misunderstanding that leads to abusive name calling and most of the boarding house/year group split into side A, side B, and I couldn't care less...it rapidly escalates verbally and you end up with two screaming crying girls yelling themselves hoarse at each other and then overnight it is all fine again (or not, but mostly fine)

 

[Montero]

Let me put it another way - neither the men nor women act 'stereotypically', but the way they do act would be considered as more manly. For me, honestly, the main part of it is that on the whole, they don't seem to take care in their appearance (not in the 'just don't follow fashion' way, but sometimes actually quite unpleasant way). I'm not going to say anymore because I don't think I can express myself properly here, and you're right, it's not simple.

I don't think I quite understand what you're trying to say. Are you trying to imply that all men and women act the same (depending on the social situation) and sex is irrelevant? .

Nope. I am not saying gender is irrelevant, I am saying that it is not always relevant and my main experience at work is in sci-tech settings where everyone gets on with the job and whether they are male or female is irrelevant and doesn't seem to have much impact if any on they way they do the job. Or if there was an impact, I didn't notice it.

In general, I'm not saying stereotypes are not true. I am saying that stereotypes are not universally applicable and that I object to people assuming that I (or anyone else) will conform to their pre-conceptions and shorthand of what a man or woman should do. I was also pointing out that the stereotypes I've mentioned are not universally applicable to all cultures, and from the little I know, at least one culture has the gender stereotypes reversed, which says to me that a lot of it could be nurture not nature.

In life, I am asking that everyone judges everyone as individuals. (In an ideal world, I know etc) and is tolerant.

Now, returning nearer to planet earth,
What I am asking, is what in addition to stereotypes of the type I listed, is the difference between men and women for folks on SFF? Subtle behavioural things, ways of approaching problems, um what is talked about?

So if anyone would like to jump in here please

I really don't "get" a lot of this men and women are different thing and I'm asking for data. As I've said, my background is largely where men and women are doing job first, gender second if at all. I know that other people have different experiences and I'd just like to get something of a handle on it.
It may be there are some "things" I've not noticed and once someone says well women xxx
or men yyy
I'll then go "oh, of course".

It would also be interesting in terms of data (and I've done an awful lot of data collection and comparison down the years) to do this by region, social class etc, possibly a bit too inflammatory - .

 

[Montero]

Yes they do, but it can very quickly get out of hand on a slight (often imagined) misunderstanding that leads to abusive name calling and most of the boarding house/year group split into side A, side B, and I couldn't care less...it rapidly escalates verbally and you end up with two screaming crying girls yelling themselves hoarse at each other and then overnight it is all fine again (or not, but mostly fine)

Occurs to me that perhaps girls burst into tears at each other where boys would thump each other in the same situation.

Not saying that girls don't fight and boys don't cry, but would you (all) say it is more common for boys to hit out where a girl would burst into tears?

(Really trying to understand the mystery of the human race here.)

 

[Montero]

Regarding "bitch".

Isn't there also the use of men calling other men bitch with the meaning that "he's my bitch" which seems to be at its politest - he runs errands for me when I order him to.

 

[Mouse]

Not saying that girls don't fight and boys don't cry, but would you (all) say it is more common for boys to hit out where a girl would burst into tears?

Not me. I'm a brawler not a bawler. (Unless it's that time of the month and then it's the hormones fault, not mine. One of the reasons being female sucks!)

Re ******* v bitch. I wouldn't ever call a female friend a bitch (to her face! ). I think the banter-y equivalent of ******* is 'cow.'

 

[Kylara]

here's me being cynical (surprise surprise) but I'm pretty sure that most of the crying is for sympathy, rarely are they actually THAT upset, and girls that get past the screaming stage do then hit each other; in fact I was witness to an horrific fight between two girls that got so violent that even the housemistress just stood and waited for them to stop, no-one was getting close to them...but in the same situation boys would probably do more damage than the girls did, I think the outcome of the fight I saw was mainly bruises, and a little bit of a bloody nose where one had been slammed into the wall...