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]

For me, it's mostly that the female POV is rather boring. *shrugs* The only exception for me tends to be Janet Evanovich because she makes her female characters interesting, fun, quirky. Characters I actually enjoy reading about and want to read more of.

I tried the Rachel Morgan series but as you know from my ranting, that went FAR south about book four - mostly for me because 1) she made Rachel do utterly STUPID stuff 2) she was FAR too determined to push the lesbian angle and 3) the men were simply a means to an end for her, being thrown out left and right to again, further the lesbian angle. *ugh*

I've tried Kathy Reich's first book. It was...alright. Not exactly compelling to me, at least not enough for me to spend money on the rest of the series. Though I can't really say if it's more that her Brennan just wasn't interesting enough for me or if it was just her style of writing that turned me off.

I've read a couple of Tami Hoag's and they were...again, alright. Didn't leave me wanting to read more though. One was MUCH to disturbingly graphic and twisted - which is simple dislike of a particular style more than a dislike of the female character and the other was just...boring. *shrugs*

Currently attempting Tanya Huff's Blood series. I just started the first book so can't really say one way or the other. I enjoyed the series, so I'm hoping the books are better.

Most of the books on my shelf though are from male POVs. Even if it's a female author (which is the case like with 90% of them), the male POV is just more interesting to me. Perhaps its that the author doesn't have to/feel the need to either use or try and get around the cliches that a female...whatever (detective, cop, lawyer, doctor or what have you) tend to be surrounded with. Personally, I don't want to read about a woman struggling in a man's world. I'm SICK of hearing about it quite honestly and I'm a woman!

If the book doesn't have any of that, none of that oh poor me, I'm a woman fighting against sexism bullshit, then I tend to actually enjoy it because instead of harping on and highlighting the idea that women are still not viewed equally, these books simply, MAKE them equal. That's what I want to read, a female character that is strong, capable, smart, funny, competent without then turning around and hearing her whine about how HARD it is to do all of those things because ALL men SUCK. *headdesk* And sure, it could be that these authors are attempting to bring to light something that needs to change, but they're going about it in a way that simply seems to say, geez man, look MORE whiny women, we must pity them. Instead of saying, wow, there's a totally competent, awesome woman that DESERVES equality.

But there are other turn offs too. I'm tired of reading books where the female lead is either a raving feminist that thinks all men should be put on an island and only contacted when a woman needs some sperm or where she's the pathetic woman pining after her boss or her best friend or her best friend's husband kind of thing or where she's the raving lunatic that secretly stalks her boyfriend cause she's just SURE he was looking a little too intently at the waitress at dinner kind of thing and is now entering bunny boiler stages of jealousy or where she's so career oriented that she looks down her nose at any woman stupid enough to procreate and want a family when obviously the only TRUE path to happiness is the almighty buck. *facepalm*

Sorry, sorry. Ranting stopped. :P So to recap, there's just not enough female POV books that present the female character in a light that makes her even remotely likeable or interesting for me. So I stick with what I like, which tends to be male oriented books because the authors are just better at portraying them in a more...balanced light than they are female ones.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

You hit the nail on the head when on what I was thinking the reasons are. Maybe YOU should write the article for Hathor, because you've already said it all! (seriously)

[forcryinoutloud.livejournal.com]

LOL! *grins* I think for the most part, those of us that have problems with female POVs in books feel the same way, for the same reasons. I'm often shocked to find women who actually enjoy some of the truly horrific portrayals of women in books (and TV and movies). Women that identify themselves as feminists (I'm not one of them), who are actually defending these horribly written women. *sigh* I think sometimes some feminists get stuck in this idea that they have to stick up for any and all portrayals of women rather than admitting that hey, sometimes the women being written really ARE that bad.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

It's a problem that I have with feminism and this whole wimmin movement I see a lot on LJ. I am certianly not against promoting female characters. And to this day, I still consider myself a feminist and I am proud of the graduate training I have in the field.

However, I disagree so much with many of the independent feminist movements. I also don't think that much of "fandom" - whatever famdon that might be - really understands the depth and the conflict with feminism itself. Everyone is so quick to cry sexism or yay strong wimmin!, but without really peeling back the layers to take a deeper look.

And before I get slammed for saying that, I'm not implying that only people in the field can be critical. I often think that people in the field are not critical enough LOL I know plenty of people that can really look deeply into literature and flim for the sheer fact they are smart critical people. I just think that Tv, movies, fandom, whatever tends to have a very narrow viewpoint and they refuse to look beyond it.

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Everyone is so quick to cry sexism or yay strong wimmin!

I think my biggest problem is that too often the examples used to show "strong women" really *aren't*. Being able to kick alien/terrorist/bad guy ass doesn't automatically make a woman (or a man) strong, it just means she's got some fighting skills and a sense of self-preservation.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

It goes back to a very shallow reading of character. I just happen to think male characters can get away with it more than female characters. We're less critical of them (in general).

[tejas.livejournal.com]

I suspect the reason, or at least one reason, male characters get away with it more than female characters is because it's generally (at least in my experience) women who are pointing out the flaws in the female characters. We see their flaws more clearly because we know ourselves *and* we feel somewhat personally slighted when the cliches are repeated over and over again.

Then again, male characters are often given the most positive portrayals. They're the honorable heroes forsaking their own lives to help others while the female characters get themselves into stupid situations and need the male hero to save them.

[forcryinoutloud.livejournal.com]

I agree that fandom...not all, but certainly a selection of it, has that narrow point of view. That they deem every female character death automatically makes the writer a misogynist. That we should all be somehow embracing and reveling in any and all female characters just by the sheer fact that they happen to have the same damn genitals as us *snort* without ever looking deeper and thinking, you know, perhaps that woman being killed actually furthers the story arc rather than proving the writer is a horrible misogynistic bastard, or perhaps, you know, that woman is actually written HORRIBLY and deserves the hate she's getting (not the woman herself, but the CHARACTER, big difference) rather than being deserving of said "feminists" adulation for her simply because of where her reproductive organs are located. It's rather sad really, to see these "feminists" actually hating on REAL women, their fellow fen, because said fen disagree with them about a fictional character.

I'll be the first to get on the Boo!Bandwagon if some writer actually IS being misogynistic but what qualifies as misogyny lately seems to be a writer not giving a female character QUEEN status but actually treating her like a real human being that makes mistakes, lives, dies. *snort* Apparently to these particular fannish poppets all women should be worshiped like goddesses, even if they're the worst written characters in the history of television, books and movies all put together. *facepalm*

[tejas.livejournal.com]

I think of these types as Pop!Feminists. They don't really understand what the point of feminism *is*. Perpetuating negative stereotypes is *NOT* a smart thing to do.

[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. :-)

[tejas.livejournal.com]

If you like military science fiction, may I suggest Elizabeth Moon's books? Her female protagonists are, well, just *women*. Highly competent, ordinarily flawed, have to deal with the consequences of their mistakes and so on. The only time I've seen her touch on more overtly feminist issues (as opposed to the basic subversion of accepted equality and now sad is it that it's subversive at all ;-) was a situation where the society was the "other" being dealt with.

Also, Kristine Smith's books (series of five, I think) have a similar feel. Her protagonist has so many other issues (being modified with alien DNA is a real pain) that it's a good thing being female isn't part of the problem.

[forcryinoutloud.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestions! :) I'll check them out and see if they seem like something I might like. *g*

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Hope you do. They're both terrific writers.