Speaking Of Strong Female Characters...

Speaking Of Strong Female Characters…

…I’m beginning to think that part of the problem with ‘strength’ as a descriptor in this context is the word itself; or rather, the fact that we’re still using strength of any sort as a yardstick. By definition, strength implies a kind of primacy, in that a strong person must literally be stronger or better than someone else in order to be called strong: otherwise, there’d be nothing to distinguish them from someone who was weak. And this doesn’t work, because even when we’re talking about strength as an abstract or non-physical quality – strength of will or character, for instance – we’re automatically lead into the trap of making comparisons. This means that, unless we deem a particular set of characters to be equally strong, we’re tacitly acknowledging that some characters must be stronger, and therefore better, than others. And given that we lack a universal definition or measurement of strength – to say nothing of the fact that characters are always going to be strong in different ways and to different degrees – we’ve basically set ourselves up to analyse characterisation from an incredibly narrow and detrimental angle, viz: their subjectively-perceived possession of a poorly-defined trait that has nothing to do with how well they’re written, how believable they are as people, the significance of their actions or their role in the wider story.

Which… yeah. Isn’t good.