A strong female character isn't one who is a cold hearted prick with no feelings

Whenever i get recommendations for novels with strong female leads most of them have cold-hearted protag who have no concept of feelings. Being a cold-hearted bitch who doesn't care for others doesn't mean your character is a strong one. It just excuses her as an asshole to others under the guise of "stronk women" And then lo and behold This strongness only seems to matter until she meets the Male lead who rapes her into love, then she becomes a doormat for him, while still being a bitc- i mean strong female character to others.

 

If she says to kick ass but is actually kicking face...

She should try slapping face instead.

 

I despise the term "strong female character". Every time I hear it my whole body clenches with hate. I think it is an absolute bane to writing, because people just take it absolutely literally. When people say "sfc" what they (should) mean is "strongly written female character", which a lot of "strong" female characters... aren't.

 

Humu I won't go so far as to call them bitch outright cuz as bitchy as they can be, they may hold some sad bs past that justifies them and they get resurrected all revenge hungry. Killin` this hoe and slappin` that wench for what they did to me or whatnot. So ya, no time for feelings time to kick some asses. Let's say I can handle all of this, but what I dislike the most is, these authors always deciding that ML has.. no ML MUST be at a higher social standing, economic standing, looks department, and in every possible way that's left, ML MUST BE higher than FL at all costs. And ML MUST BE a cold ice faced rock that ONLY gets melted by FL. Rest of females if not FL's besties they be bishes and thirsty sluts that drools after FL's Ex or ML. Wow! How original! Let me give you a round of applause to majority of Chinese romance authors.

 

Yeah, I get you. I actually like the word "strong" in this context, but it's really easy for people to get confused by so it's another one of those terms that should be worded better. Strong can mean three completely different things; all of which can be applicable. There's strong in terms of strength and skillset; strength of character which pertains to willpower, empathy, and other positive personality traits; and the kind of strength that you're writing about, the strength of the writing. I totally agree that only the last of these really matter when we're talking about fiction, but it's easy to conflate these different terms.

 

Well just because you dont care about others doesnt also necessarily mean you're a bitch. Can you cite certain examples?

Also irl most of the bitchy girls I know actually care about what others think.

Another thing, you complain about the cgaracter not having feelings but detest her when she falls in love?

 

Agreed. See Ascending, Do Not Disturb! for an example of a strong female character who isn't coldhearted and who delights in femininity. A woman doesn't have to imitate a man in order to be strong.

 

True, strong women supposed to be Ultra PC like Vice-Principal Strong Woman.

 

Females who don't take on "hero" traits tend to be romance only stories and they either go all mushy and feelings or just down into sex madness.

Certain traits tend to turn the female into something not that fantastic. For example, magic+justice would make Sailor Moon (or other magical girl). Gentle+smart and you get a slice-of-life story. Hard to wiggle out of that one.

To make the MC interesting you need the MC to be flawed. However, what can you give the female MC something other than "cold-blooded bitch" or "ruthless emperor" without turning her into some bimbo succubus?

Those are positive "male" traits that are somewhat flawed by work well with readers. They are extensions of "smart" and "prudent".

I guess you can go with the classics Condor trilogy female leads. They have the best females.

 

Huh My Disciple Died Yet Again is good

 

.... uh, what? I'm 99.9% sure you've met women in your life who were neither perfect nor bimbo succubuses.

 

What a strength type are we talking about?
Physical strength? There is difference in a raw muscle strength in above than ~95%(difference in hormones and bones structures(man bones heavier and bigger)), but there is no difference man vs woman with any modern/not modern weapon. But muscles do not protect you from a brick/knife/bullet/etc.
Mental strength? I would say that there is no difference almost, but there is a social/history/country/etc/ things that build us. But there is no limits like when we are talking about muscle strength. You can choose that by yourself: be weak or strong.

So talking about strong woman examples as a single independent person I do not talk about average/not average modern/not modern women, but about exceptional human beings(attention(!) on human beings, but no man and woman exactly). There are no much examples when we are talking about women(and men too! but there are a little more examples), but there are:
movie: Ripley(from Alien movie)
game: Amanda(from Alien Isolation)
game: Sarah(from StarCraft)
game: Alice(from McGee Alice. She is the crazy person, but why not)

Maybe I forgot others, but this is a vivid examples of strong women.
Why are they strong? The lack of muscle strength, but that is all.
The important part is: they are the independent human beings inside them(Alice is mad, but she has it).

 

They don't make good main characters. Unless you do slice of life stories in which everyone is average and normal. None of them are heroic enough to be MC. Women tend to be a lot more risk adverse than men. Heroes take risks.

Good MC needs to be flawed but also heroic. The wrongness of the MC is what make him or her interesting but at the same time the attempt and struggle to be heroic would be what people like.

The MC needs to be a risk taking female who has a death wish, doesn't fall for hot guys...etc. somewhat like a man but has boobs and going casual with a guy and probably care more about the world than her family... Okay, that's a man with boobs.

Then you need the flaws. Something like Greedy will make her more like a guy. Rage, wrath and cruelty might work if you go all revenge style story.

Hard to avoid being a "cold-blooded bitch" without somehow turning into a love addict bimbo.

 

But is any of this actually true though? The big old hero as the protagonist is only necessary in a small amount of the actual stories out there. You can do all sorts of things without having to do this; and even if you do, it's not exactly hard to write female characters who feel like female characters. Hell, I love reading books with female protagonists and almost none of the ones I like feel anything like male characters.

 

I bet that if you took your average female IRL friend or family member and placed her in a situation where she had to be heroic.. she would be heroic. So I completely disagree with you. Your entire argument is based on the idea that women don't have anything worth fighting for, so as long as they're not adrenaline addicts they never do anything interesting.

Which is completely false. I suggest you head to a library and ask the librarian to show you the biographies of women in warfare, as a starting point. People who fought with tooth and claw just to be allowed into the military in the first place, who did it, who did an amazing job, and were then forgotten about. The Night Witches is on the top of my head, then you've got people from the various freedom movements, like the women of Rose Blanche who weren't engagded in direct combat but who were still executed by the Nazi's for their work in freeing Jews from concentration camps. Then you have the growing number of self-biographical works from modern conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and so on, and quite a bit from ancient literature if you take the time to scrape the surface.

These people don't have interesting stories? These people don't make interesting main characters in their own tales? They don't have weaknesses? They're "men with boobs"? You're missing out on a lot of really, REALLY good and captivating stories if you really think that. There are some spell-binding books out there that you've never dreamed you'd love, give them a chance when you find the time.

 

What do you mean heroic? I severely doubt, for example, someone would risk their safety for a stranger IRL to be honest (at least the majority), doesn't matter they are female or male. Moreover, "she would be heroic", no? People have personal belief and personality, just because the situation ask her/him to be heroic that doesn't mean she or he is gonna be heroic because of it. People who personally fight in wars or movements are committed to that act and if a situation will arise about it they will do what their personal belief tell them, if than other people consider that heroic or not is another matter altogether.

This phrase:

is completely based on nonsense, I could say that your entire argument is based on the idea that all women are heroic. What matters is personal belief and character and thats all, gender is secondary to that. If you are a person that simply goes with the flow and act ''heroic'' when the situation requires it EVEN if it goes against your beliefs and character than you are nothing more than a puppet that goes with the flow. (I most likely messed up a bit, but I think I got my point across). "Heroic" is also a very broad term and can refer to too many things.

 

Does someone have to be heroic when faced with a strangers demise? No. They don't have to. Does someone have to be heroic when facing, for example, the possible loss of their child, parent or sibling? Different matter entirely. Pick something they want badly enough, or don't want to lose badly enough, and everyone in the world has the capacity for heroism.

My personal definition of heroism: Self-sacrifice for a goal that's worth it. If you put a person in a position where heroism on their part is worth it... watch them. You'll be surprised. Perhaps few people will go from cowards to heroes in a moment, but we're talking about a novel format that usually span several character archs. And if they don't go for heroism, they'd still go for ingenuity, or tenacity, or badassery, or deft manipulation. People can be pretty awesome. They do awesome things. Give them a moment of adaption and they'll surprise you over and over again when the conditions demand it of them.

Either way, I'm not sure what your point is. My reply was a response to another post, and it sounds a little like you read it out of context. The entire point I'm making is that a female character can be heroic (which was the example used by the person I replied to - not all mains need heroism to be interesting in the first place) without being either "males with boobs bitches" or "bimbo succubuses". That's an idea I find to be completely nonsensical.

 

*cough* Strong + musclehead + apocalypse savvy female lead thrown into ancient times can be found in both Unruly Phoenix Xiaoyao and Heroic Wife Reborn.

The first one is completed but has a slightly sudden ending, the second one is ongoing and has the superior male lead (in my opinion, haha). >u>

 

My response was on your first setence:

Just because there is a situation where someone has or needs to be heroic it doesn't mean they will be heroic, it doesn't make sense in any way.

Everyone has the capacity, but even if a situation where they want something badly enough or don't want to lose it's doesn't mean they will be heroic, it's pretty rare on the other hand no matter the situation. For example, even if a part of you want something really hard, there may be another part of you that is lazy enough to not want to work towards it; even if that part of being lazy doesn't exist it doesn't mean you would always be heroic and give your all to get that thing even if you want it.

This is referencing on when you said "she would be heroic", it shouldn't be 'would be heroic', but 'could be heroic'.

 

No, I stand by what I said.
And again, please read my comment in context.