a brief monograph on the topic of the strong female character:

gyzym:

Right okay so here’s the deal: strong female character? Is an awesome, awesome term when it means “strongly written female character.” Please assume, for the duration of this post, that that is what *I* mean when I’m using it; I don’t know what everyone else means, and maybe I missed some kind of memo or something, but as I am getting the impression that I would have torn that memo up if I had received it, it’s probably for the best. 

Here are some things a strong female character NEEDS to have: 

• Consistent characterization
• A personality/life purpose that is not hinged solely on furthering the plots of the men around her
• THAT’S IT

Here are some things a strong female character CAN have, but does not NEED to have: 

• A vagina
• A sex drive 
• A take-no-shit attitude
• A gun fixation 
• The tendency to tell dudes to go fuck themselves

Here are some things a strong female CAN’T have: 

• [Data not found] 

Here are some things we need to stop doing, as a population of human beings: 

• Defining people, for the positive or negative, solely based on their genders 
• Determining what women “can” or “cannot” be in order to be considered “strong” 
• Shaming each other for our behaviors, opinions and actions instead of contributing to change 

THAT’S ALL, THE END