Why the female protagonist just doesn't do it for you

[gategrrl]

Hi everyone!

I'm trying to write a short article on a subject some of you brought up when Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros series came up in conversation (as a group, you converted me, and I really like the series) a few months ago. It's been in my head ever since. The brief subject was, "I will never read a book with a female lead character and only read books with male lead characters."

Can you tell me more about this? Why this is so? Have you ever broken your own rule, and regretted it, or did not regret reading a female protag lead book but figured it was a fluke and you wouldn't do it again? Or the female POV just isn't interesting to you, even if the male POV is written by a woman (which you'd figure, is filtered through a female's POV anyhow).

All I have to go on are the reasons *I* think why, but I'd like to hear your own reasons, if you wouldn't mind telling me more about it. I think it's fascinating. I'm kind of in the same camp, but I have my own biases.

Comments

[forcryinoutloud.livejournal.com]

So true. It really boggles the mind when I see women that, under most circumstances, I think of as smart, down to earth, intelligent women crying misogyny when their evidence is *gasp* the writer killed a woman or *gasp* the writer used the word "bitch". *sigh* And yet, when the same things that happen to these female characters happen to male characters, oh well, that's perfectly fine. We don't actually care if a writer kills off male characters or writes a male character badly or calls a male character a bastard because the ONLY thing that matters is the way women are portrayed. *headdesk*

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. :-)