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| - In media, male characters are defined more by what they do rather than who they are. Female characters, on the other hand, are defined more by their attributes, the most primary of which is their femininity. This trope is about the female/male = passive/active dichotomy. Essentially, it's the idea men are required to be active and doing things in order for them to deserve a role in the story, but women can just sit there, looking pretty, emotionally reacting to events and that's perfectly acceptable. Like many Double Standards, this trope can be considered offensive to both genders.
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| abstract
| - In media, male characters are defined more by what they do rather than who they are. Female characters, on the other hand, are defined more by their attributes, the most primary of which is their femininity. This trope is about the female/male = passive/active dichotomy. Essentially, it's the idea men are required to be active and doing things in order for them to deserve a role in the story, but women can just sit there, looking pretty, emotionally reacting to events and that's perfectly acceptable. Like many Double Standards, this trope can be considered offensive to both genders. Never a Self-Made Woman is one major unfortunate implication of this trope: female characters are often more noteworthy for their bloodline or for who their father was than for their own actions. See, The Chief's Daughter, The President's Daughter, The General's Daughter, Daddy's Little Villain, Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter and all the Princess Tropes. (In fact, an Always Female trope with a possessive apostrophe in the title will probably fall into this category. May also relate to the differing treatment of a Daddy's Girl versus a Momma's Boy. A girl in the shadow of her father is cute and adorable and, well, expected; a boy in the shadow of his mother is weak and mockable and should be defining himself by his own actions, the first of which being cutting the apron strings.) Another Unfortunate Implication for women is quite subtle. Research suggests that we divide people into moral actors and moral objects. Moral actors do things; moral objects have things done to them. In other words the difference between a villain and a hero is far smaller than the difference between either and a Damsel in Distress. When audiences or authors fail to view the evil choices of female characters in the same way as the evil choices of male characters, this trope is in effect. They are removing the agency of female characters and recasting them as moral objects rather than moral actors. This has the unintended effect of lessening the heroism of heroic female characters as well: after all, if it's not a female character's fault if she fails to be heroic or is actively villainous, then no one can really say that it's her choice to be heroic either. The absence of this moral peril in female characters tends to make them very, very, very flat when compared to their male counterparts. It also, as a side-effect, tends to produce a lot of 'daughter of the old master' action girls; they're heroes, but only because daddy was one. A final characterization effect for female characters is MacGuffin Girl. The girl who is mostly noteworthy because she literally is a plot-important object. For men, the Unfortunate Implication of this trope is that males are judged harshly by their lack of action. If a man isn't advancing the plot by taking action, he generally ceases to be a sympathetic or compelling character. Passive male characters are also unlikely to have innate attributes that, by themselves, are important to the plot, and as a result the poor guy may end up being disposed of. The significantly high attrition rate of physically challenged men in fiction further attests to this. It also adds insult to injury by insidiously implying that disabled men are "omega males", thus worthless and useless, unless they agree to undertake a "female" role by being Inspirationally Disabled. Male characters also suffer from a lack of focus on their interior world or emotional reactions to events. This lack of focus on the interior world of male characters--outside of a few stereotypical relationships such as love interest or buddy sidekick--means that the average male hero functions more as a form of Heroic Mime than a three dimensional character. He is a placeholder for the audience precisely because of his lack of personal emotional reaction- the audience is free to imagine him feeling whatever emotion they themselves are feeling. The lack of emphasis on the interior world of male characters also makes them more difficult to sympathize with. By contrast, the greater emphasis on a female character's interior world and passive attributes creates distance between her and the audience because she and her emotional reactions are on display. They're her reactions, not ours, which we are observing rather than experiencing. Paradoxically, this means audience members identify more with male characters while sympathizing more with female characters. Finally, men and women are limited in the emotions they express. Men, in particular, are limited to emotions that inspire dynamic, forceful action--such as hate, vengeance and anger. Women, while recently allowed to explore the more proactive emotions, generally express more passive emotions such as sadness, vulnerability and happiness. Again as female characters more often portray sympathetic emotions we sympathize with them more. Conversely, we are invited to identify more with male characters as they offer us a cathartic release of proactive but negative and socially unacceptable emotions. Usually through killing and blowing shit up. (The dichotomy may even go so far as to redefine the word "emotion" to mean "emotion stereotypically associated with women.") Part of this trope refers to how characters function to advance the plot. While male characters will be directly involved in the action, or manipulating the action behind the scenes in a comprehensive way, female characters, when they do take action, often take it in the form of inspiring, motivating or nagging a male character to do something. See Lady Macbeth, Henpecked Husband. And, yes, it also applies to that meaning of "action" as well. Traditionally, women were considered virtuous by their chastity or, their lack of action. Whereas, of course, a "lack of action" for a man generally has negative connotations. This trope is a possible consequence of Men Are Generic, Women Are Special. Since men are generic, any individual male character has to do something special to stand out. But because women are special, a female character just has to be, well, female.
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