Up until now I’ve been addressing it from the other end. Almost all of the characters are men; there are only two or three women, and those women are in different countries. The men treat the women like garbage and then bad things come of it, but the men are too selfish and thoughtless to care about anything but themselves. Unfortunately it’s hard to add women or girls to a story about a boarding school for boys and a military academy. I’ll have to think of a way. (♯^.^ღ)
I recall a push to stop using the Bechdel test as a feminist/quality measure, but that was some years ago. I think most of the pushback came from content that passed but were problematic, whilst content that didn’t pass was not.
I think 90% of my work recently fails, because I’m writing short, fast-paced Romance where the story literally revolves around a character and their love interest for 10k words. Historically my longer works pass but only by virtue of the fact I mainly write women, who are friends with other women, and talk about things.
Yeah there’s something about the Bechdel test that makes it difficult to pass when you’re writing in first-person and your protagonist is a non-woman.
Since it was developed for cinema, where first-person povs are very hard to come by and don’t make sense for the medium, I think movies should be expected to pass the Bechdel test. Also, didn’t Hollywood have some kind of codes at some point that basically prohibited women and queer people from being protagonists in the US?
Initially when writing this reply, I was like “well, not all novels need to pass the Bechdel test,” and I still believe that it can be harder or feel more forced to pass when you’re writing in first-person and your protagonist is male, but I erroneously believed that the two women must talk alone about something other than a man in order to pass. I guess it’s relatively ambiguous as to, say, whether or not two women contributing to a strategic discussion counts, but maybe that’s against the spirit of the test? It is definitely the case that more stories should pass the Bechdel test, make no mistake.
Maybe my thoughts are wack or make no sense here lol. I’m no pro when it comes to storytelling or media analysis, that’s for sure.
I think there’s no use in trying to interpret it too literally and say that a book is bad if it fails. Sometimes it just doesn’t fit the story you’re telling
I see this test more as something to make me question myself a bit and what type of content I write.
After going through the exercise in my earlier reply, I can see a great range. Some books pass easily, some would be really hard to pass because it won’t make sense. But then some might benefit from a little adjustment that results in a clean pass.
Definitely, especially when the book has one goal (and that goal deeeefinitely includes a man if the pairing is straight), lol.
I think it’s so easy to get wrapped up in things like this, and to me I just think it’s more important to make sure you’re being mindful of marginalized communities, rather than trying to pass an old movie test from the 50s(?). Women in media was actually part of my college media studies course, but I focused on video games vs film - it is interesting, especially the history of movies/Bechdel, and women (and marginalized people) being used as set dressing/2D plot points.
But then again, I feel so drastically empowered by my favorite movie, and people to this day still can’t agree if it’s highly feminist, or the most anti-woman flick ever (and it doesn’t pass the Bechdel test either)… so take this with a grain of salt. Lol.
Historically my longer works pass but only by virtue of the fact I mainly write women, who are friends with other women, and talk about things.