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

[tejas.livejournal.com]

I think we often want idealized versions of ourselves. Still flawed, still screwing up at times, not perfect, but rarely faced with anything they can't handle. Because sometimes we *are* faced with crap we don't necessarily have the skillsets or the experience or the *will* to handle without major disruptions in the lives we've become settled in.

I think we also want them faced with more interesting challenges than we see. "Daniel Jackson and the Departmental Head from Hell" might be good crack!fic, but reading about the banal evil of small-minded academics (or bureaucrats) with more power than brains would make me want to spork my eyes out.