: It's about your reader's perception of femininity, what they consider "feminine". Masculine is commonly perceived as resilient, reasonable, silent, problem-solver and feminine is the opposite: fragile,

It's about your reader's perception of femininity, what they consider "feminine".

Masculine is commonly perceived as resilient, reasonable, silent, problem-solver and feminine is the opposite: fragile, emotional, outspoken and problem-dweller (ah, the cursed duality we must bring onto everything, don't we?). You may consider it a good thing, or a bad thing, but this is how it is and what we all have to deal with. We are all equal in the light of law (or at least - we're supposed to be), but traditions don't change as fast. That indeed is a problematic view, that forces women to partially abandon their femininity in order to achieve anything. Happens in real life, not only fiction.

Back to your writing: it's not about your characters being real or made up. It's about perception of femininity your readers already have and perception of femininity you want to shape. You need to push the boundary enough to stretch it, but not far enough to break it. Writers go for men-with-tits (or end up with them unintentionally) because a tomboy demonstrating strength presents no cognitive dissonance. Portraying strength through quality that's commonly perceived as weakness is difficult.

A way was led by Lady Macbeth. She achieved her goals via "typically feminine" ways of scheming and manipulation. The fact that she's a negative character doesn't change anything here, I take it as a simple shortcut - it's hard to demonstrate power in a positive way. Demonstrable power is pretty much always confrontational, either by the bad guys that started it or by the good ones - to overcome the former. And we've arrived at "women don't feel the urge to perform risky stunts in order to impress potential mates". Which is probably the one thing that has more merit than just a stereotype.

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: Is using a different voice for protagonist's narration and dialogue ok? My protagonist uses a lot of extensive vocabulary and is quite verbose. The novel I am writing is a first-person narrative,

@Sarah872

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@Sarah872

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: Will writing actual numbers instead of writing them with letters affect readership? This question sounds similar to this but I am asking something different. It is said that Stephen Hawking

: It's about your reader's perception of femininity, what they consider "feminine". Masculine is commonly perceived as resilient, reasonable, silent, problem-solver and feminine is the opposite: fragile,

More posts by @Sarah872

: Is using a different voice for protagonist's narration and dialogue ok? My protagonist uses a lot of extensive vocabulary and is quite verbose. The novel I am writing is a first-person narrative,

: If I wouldn't want to read the story, is writing it still a good idea? I struggle with forming full-fledged ideas. I'll come up with a snippet of an idea, have a hard time fleshing the idea

: How to plan length of a chapter? I have planned my book to be around 250 pages. Because that is my target audience. In my country I can sell the book of that length for around 250-300 rupees.

: Will writing actual numbers instead of writing them with letters affect readership? This question sounds similar to this but I am asking something different. It is said that Stephen Hawking

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