The girl who is ‘not like the other girls’ is a staple in writing, especially in young adult fiction and fiction for teenagers. Unfortunately, there’s a deeply misogynistic root to this trope and that is why you should be careful when using it.
In real life, every girl is ‘not like the other girls,’ simply because teenage girls, believe it or not, are not clones of each other. Our teens are when we realize what sets us apart from the others. Perhaps we have an interest our classmates don’t seem to share. Perhaps we feel we’re more adult than them already. Perhaps we just are different in the way we dress or the way we want to look. Setting yourself apart from others and finding your own identity is what being a teenager is about, after all. In addition to the bodily changes from child to adult, adolescence is also where we mentally grow up into a full-fledged individual.
Yet, this is not what the ‘not like the other girls’ trope is all about. The girl who is ‘not like the other girls’ is usually defined by having male-coded interests, traits, and skills, not simply by having a different kind of femininity than most of her female classmates. Being ‘not like the other girls’ is what justifies this girl being the main character.
You will not find the opposite, the boy who is ‘not like the other boys’ and gets the main role because of that. A boy who is perfectly like the other boys is a fine character for a story, a girl who is like the other girls is not.
The big problem is that, as mentioned above, the girl who is ‘not like the other girls’ is set apart from them through having male-coded traits and skills. She might be interested in technology or cars, she might be into sports, she might be a tomboy and dress like a boy. In essence, she become an honorary boy by those skills, interests, or traits. She’s often the only girl in the group of main characters, the one who seems to do her best to be more boyish than the boys.
All of this is based on the misogynistic idea that male interests, traits, and skills are worth more than female ones. A girl who can sew and cook is worth less than a girl who can repair cars and climb a tree. A ‘real’ girl can be the damsel, but not the hero. Every girl who is ‘not like the other girls’ plays into that view of the world. Her role as the hero of the story is justified by her not being a girl, but a boy with boobs, essentially. She is not valued for bringing female skills to the table, as she could be in a group of main characters, but by playing along with the boys and adding to their male skill set.
This doesn’t mean that girls can’t like male-coded things. We’re humans, not robots, we’re not programmed to only like ‘appropriate’ skills and interests or only have ‘appropriate’ traits. Most girls will have some ‘male’ skill, interest, or trait, even if it’s not pronounced and they might not talk about it. For a long time, for instance, girls would not speak about their love of comic books, even if they were as interested in them as a lot of boys were. By now, they do, but often receive a harsh backlash by the ‘fanboys’ who think they must be fake for pretending to like a male subject such as superheroes.
This gate-keeping is what makes women stay silent about their male-coded interests, traits, or skills. They are derided for them in real life, so they don’t speak about them. They only see the girl who likes the same things in the media, the girl who is ‘not like the other girls.’ That is what makes women love these characters who can openly display their male-coded side without getting attacked for it. They are the ones who can save the day with their skill to repair cars or with their knowledge about superhero comics.
What to do instead? Write characters who are not defined by being girls or boys. Write characters, not gender stereotypes. Some find it easier to do that by writing a male character (as ‘male,’ together with ‘white’ and ‘straight,’ are the standard) and then simply turning him female at the end of the creation process. There are a few changes to make then, but those are mostly based on biology (such as women have less physical strength, but even that is relative).
Ask yourself what your female character, especially if they happen to be a teenage girl, should be like. What interests would they have? What traits would define them? What skills would they have learned and how much would they like them? Play up female-coded traits, interests, and skills as useful. Show how they can save the day, too. Bad-ass female characters are cool, but they are not necessarily defined by repairing cars, climbing trees, and knowing all about comic books. Let the ‘tomboy’ girl and the ‘girly’ girl bond over their love of comic books or computer games. Let the ‘girly’ girl unpack her computer knowledge and hack the servers of Evil Corp™ while the boys in the team try their best to get into the building with brute force. Let the ‘tomboy’ girl win the monster’s trust by bandaging their injury and preparing them a meal.
The ‘not like the other girls’ trope is an easy shortcut to creating a female character which will be accepted as a protagonist for a story. At first, it even looks like it’s empowering. All these girls have fun with male-coded traits, skills, or interests, after all. They evaluate the ‘guilty pleasures’ of the female audience and make the character more relatable for the male audience. That is not what they should be there for, though. They should represent girls and women on screen or in books. It’s not wrong to have male-coded traits, skills, or interests, but there’s also nothing wrong with having female-coded ones. Let the girls win the day with their female-coded side for a change and show that those skills, traits, and interests can be valuable as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment