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

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

No you didn't. It's part of the entire issue, really, and takes it out of the personal realm (I am a woman: and I hate women protagonists in books) and more into the wider realm of female characters and their characterization. <<=== Bwahaha, did I just write that?! *giggles*

Anyhow, you know what I mean. Use that educated brain of yours. Help!

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

I just can't help but be on two minds about it. I absolutely agree that characters should be written as characters - with their own motivations, their own desires, and their own faults. But completely degendering characters doesn't seem to be the right answer either. If we want real characters, characters that transcend cliches, we have to take into account their gender. Gender is not invisible. It's part of who we are. If I were a male, culturally, physically, and everything in between that would make me a different person, even if I had the same personality.

So while we can say that female characters are less interesting or that we enjoy male character more, we have to be careful how we frame it. if it's matter of storyline, how can we change things so that female characters have engrossing and engaging storylines too? Shouldn't female readers be able to identify with female characters? Erasing their "femaleness" robs the character of a vital part of themselves. But obviously something is going very wrong if we can't really enjoy female characters.

I'm not sure if it's their goals or their appearance or some combination of everything in between.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

Good points. I should ask you or FCOL to write this article. It's a much deeper subject that I thought it was.