When one voice isn’t enough
One of the biggest mistakes made by creators when making empowered female characters or attempting to have female representation in a narrative, is to only do it once. A single prominent, contributing voice to carry the full weight of the female gender.
The problem with this is that when there is only one woman standing alongside the men, speaking as loudly as they speak, every element of her character is magnified. After all, she’s “The Girl”, the only mirror we have to see ourselves in and it’s not one that’s going to reflect true for all of us. Every weakness, every flaw, every petty moment stands out like a massive, giant sign that screams “This Is What The Author Thinks All Women Are Like”. Because there is nothing for comparison to tell us any different.
Obviously real women are flawed, some very deeply, and flaws are a vital part of a well-rounded character. Having flaws doesn’t mean she’s not empowered or that she isn’t an important part of the story. And a lot of arguments can be made based on the virtues, skills, and accomplishments of “The Girl” in any narrative she appears in. These in turn often lead to nit-picky fights at the end of which “The Girl”’s supporters throw up their hands in frustration at the dissenters and declare “you’re just not happy unless female characters are better than the men, are you? That’s your idea of empowered, I see”.
So the usual answer to a weak and flawed “The Girl” is; her perfectly flawless cousin. Tough, strong, ass-kicking, skilled, intelligent, and capable; all the wonderful traits that usually get a big “Get yer’ empowerment here!” sticker slapped on them. Except that, just like before, there’s only one of her, or she’s the only one out of a horde of voiceless background women to do anything of significance. Once again, she is magnified to the point of being unrealistic. At worst, she comes off as pandering — “look, look, she’s as amazing and awesome as the 500 awesome male characters in the same story! This totally proves I’m not sexist at all!”
At best, she becomes not “The Girl”, but “The Goddess”; the unobtainable ideal. The message that woman are not deserving of stories because we are human and flawed and equal, but because we are magical, mystical, and above the petty, war-like thoughts of men. And any of us that aren’t, don’t deserve to get our own voice.
It’s funny how people “get” that a single male character can’t possibly represent all men — that’s why you get the Five or Seven Man Teams with characters types like “The Warrior”, “The Intellectual”, “The Kid”, “The Dumbass”, and every variety you can think of in-between. Most everyone understands this by default. But when it comes to women? “The Girl” is treated like another personality type that happens to have breasts.
