Bechdel-test testing

[raspberryhunter]

Yuletide has been kicking my butt, but that's another story...

Now that I have twenty fics up, which is a nice base-10 round number, I went through them to check for Bechdel test passing. Nine of them pass Bechdel. Eleven of them pass reverse-Bechdel. (Many of these overlap, and six fics which are F/M romances or F/M main interaction don't pass either one.) I'm fairly happy with this.

What I'm not so happy with is that for seven of those nine fics, I had to make a conscious decision that it was going to pass Bechdel. Two of those seven I actually had to be told by a beta that one of the women characters was not fleshed out enough (independent of whether it passed Bechdel). (The two where I didn't have to make a conscious decision were both written for rarewomen. All hail rarewomen!)

In exactly none of the reverse-Bechdel passes did I think about it at all. They just happened.

Yeah... so... I think I see the problem.

(Also, if it weren't for the Misses Clause challenge the first year I did yuletide, last year, I am not sure how much I would have thought about it at all.)

Comments

[beatrice_otter]

Part of the fact that you have to think about Bechdel passes is because of the ratio of male to female characters in the media we write about. But, yeah, it's something I have to consciously think about, though it is becoming more natural as time goes on.

[raspberryhunter]

Yeah, the problem isn't just me :) Not just the ratio, either, but also the fact that most of these source texts/media are centered around the male world, and the power is in the hands of men, so even when the fic only has women characters, they're spending their time talking about husbands/lovers/brothers/sons because that's where the power is...

Yes, I've also found it's a bit easier now than it was even a year ago, which is nice :) (And I am sooooo psyched for my yuletide fic in this regard -- well -- more about that in a month :) :) )