Female Protagonists 2: What is 'female' to a character anyway? How to write a female character?

Writers are weird. My kind of people, I mean. Being a philosopher and a writer, being part of The Writers Block forum on Discord, makes me think about some things I've been interested in for a long time, from a new angle. And sometimes I even get interesting questions that make me feel like going back to my books and rereading everything I ever read again. I guess that's why I love living and breathing philosophy...

Philosophical questions add to the insanity of writing...

Whenever someone new enters @thewritersblock discord channel where aspiring writers of all levels meet, there is usually someone sane enough around to excuse the insanity. (So don't feel put off by this, things going crazy creative can be very inspiring.) But I'm afraid I'm at least partially to blame. Philosophers generally add to insanity. And yes, sometimes I just like to provoke. Asking questions that are not completely innocent, trying to evoke some discussion that perhaps is not interesting to other people...

A few days ago there was a fierce discussion about the new Star Wars movie, including the arguments for and against the ability to lift rocks without any proper training, whether you would have accepted Kylo Ren's proposal, and so forth. And then, someone mentioned that Ren was such a badass female character.

Obviously that aroused the philosopher in me, and I asked the following question: what makes her female? Why is she a 'badass' female? Or, more in general:

What makes a character female?

If with 'female' you mean a purely physical reality, then it's easy to determine a gender - although there are also difficulties, relating to transgender realities, and although I don't want to dismiss them at all, I'll not focus on them here, to not over complicate matters before even starting.

But in the world we live in, in this day and age, more is meant with 'female'. Gender is a tricky phenomenon. In a way it is related to a biological reality, but it is also more than that. And what is more, those parts of gender that have nothing to do with a biological reality, are even unrelated to it. Maybe. Sometimes. Often. Certain things are related to 'being-male' or 'being-female', even though they have no apparent or inherent link to the biological mechanisms that make a body male or female.

The important questions

So, what makes a character female? This is, I think, an important question for writers. Not only because gender influences the character, but also the way the reader relates to the character. Who can you trust, how do male and female characters deal with a situation? In the end, it's all about expectations. And about how you define things, how the world in which you place your characters is organised.

I don't have the answers to any of the following questions, are least not definite answers. But I'll go into some of them in future posts, exploring how this works in this series about female protagonists, either through exploring these questions directly or by looking at specific literature in which female protagonists are employed. But for now, let me raise some questions, for you to think about...

• What is female about the character?
• What if the character would have been male, would it have made any difference: To the story / To the audience / To the behaviour in the story / To the outcome of the story?
• What is weakness / strength / power in the story? Is this associated with males or females? Is there something male or female to the concept of power that makes it natural for power to be specifically male or female?
• Does the character adhere to the obvious gender-role we know of? If not, how does the character defy them, by taking on the opposite gender-role? In other words: did the non-stereotypical female become male, by adopting the male structures of thought and society?
• What is the 'strength' of the female, where does it come from? Is it only because she doesn't confirm to the generally perceived gender hierarchy? And is that female strength? (Or, as @sigrfolkr says: "Is she a "strong" female character because she stands on her own without the help of a male character?" Thanks for your invaluable input and questions that made me think about this again.)

I find these questions important and very interesting, as they also relate to what 'feminism' actually means. Is feminism one more way to create a power balance, using what feminists often reject as male-hierarchical power structures, in such a way that they take on the same structures in thought, the only difference being the biological gender of the person in control? Or is it something else?

"How do I write a female character?
Write her the way you would write any other character. Give her dimension, give her strength but please also don't forget to give her weaknesses (for a totally strong nothing-can-beat-her kind of girl is not a person, she's again a type - the polar opposite yet exactly the same as the damsel in distress).
Create a person.”
― Adrienne Kress

So now what?

I'll keep exploring these questions. In my work as a philosopher, I have thought about these matters quite a bit, which has made me realise how complex these matters are. I had hoped to address more in one post, but writing it I realised raising the right questions is an important first step. Especially as I have no definite answers. One thing I do know, is that by making females into males 2.0, something is going wrong. Or at least the original point that feminism is trying to make is lost.

I will explore these matters starting in literature, because I'm also a writer, and I love reading. Using @thewritersblock as a testing field, using their excellent exercise workshop and gifted editors as my victims. But also because literature is a good case study for these matters. See the previously published first part of this series where I look into Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

Next up? Tell me what questions you ask yourself about this topic,
or questions you'd like me to take a look at, in the comments below.
And of course you should follow me!

With special thanks to @multi4g's design tutorials,
all pictures and designs included are made by me.