Repeat My Name: The Female Protagonists of Today's Stories by Kayley Boddy

With the latest feminism craze on the rise, it's not surprising to see our YA books and blockbuster films sporting fresh-faced teenage girls as the protagonists. In the last four years, movies and novels such as The Hunger Games, Divergent and The Mortal Instruments have all bought into the female protagonist genre. It's actually what we've come to expect- a shy, small-town girl, caught up in a love triangle, suddenly faced with a war or an apocalypse and being turned into a fighter. And while our books and our films have delved into this female spotlight and shown us that females can be strong too, we're still missing something. We've forgotten how to make our characters diverse. We've instead turned our potentially multi-layered female protagonists into bland, stereotypical, worn-out heroes. Where did the originality go?



Think of it this way: out of every story with a female protagonist you've heard of in the past few years, it's more than likely that they all seem to be speaking the same message, in the same way. They live in the same situations: they come from a small town, they're shy, they have low self-confidence, and they're even white (which, of course, is another issue). Bonus points if there's a love triangle or if they're fighting for a boy they're in love with: Katniss Everdeen had Gale and Peeta, Tris Prior had Four, Cassie Sullivan had Ben and Evan, Sadie Kane had Anubis and Walt. Even Princess Leia had her trip-ups in the realm of love, with Luke and Han. Usually, they all possess the same flaws and actions as well. Hermione Granger, Katniss, and Bella Swan flirted to obtain what they desired. Cassie and Tris fight to keep their families together as their worlds tumble down around them. The closest of all female protagonists seem to be Katniss and Tris: both rebel against their governments for freedom. All of these characters live in a half-life, not yet fully complex and human, but only the shell of a fleshed-out character on a page. It seems to be that our mighty female protagonists are still being shaped into a stereotype we have developed in regards to our literature. Instead of Jane Eyre and Janie Starks, we're left with females from an English class character development sheet. And why do we do this?

The answer's simple. From our novels, we expect the characters we're familiar with, and therefore our writers build them accordingly and leave it at that. Nothing new is added because unfamiliarity doesn't sell novels. No new depths are added to our female protagonists because the only female protagonists we know are two-dimensional ones. We see shy, feminine characters because they reflect us, and we like being exposed to their strength because we feel as though we have that same strength inside us. We watch them fall in love amidst world crises because we hope we can find love amidst our own life crises. We were intrigued to see Tris Prior in such a fearless faction yet so weak around Four because it satisfied the craving we had for a strong female character; that satisfaction blinded us from the fact that the rest of her character is built upon a hopelessly-in-love stereotype. As long as writers include these few small traits that define the YA female protagonist, they satisfy our expectations. Females in our novels sell because they're simply female, and as long as they fit into the expectation we have for them, writers can neglect their full potentials. Our female protagonists are beginning to lack the character development and complexity they need because the only aspect readers are currently focused on is the fact that they are female.


We're missing the entire purpose of writing when we have these female protagonists. Nowadays, novels compete for the most dramatic love triangle or the most fragile-yet-unbreakable character. They compete to sell, and they sell by advertising females on their front covers; YA readers devour female protagonists because they play into the equal-representation-of-women-in-novels idea we work for. And the saddest part about it is that it's working. Why is it that in a time where females are being pushed to have the same complexity and ability as men, their representation in writing is still weak and worn out? And what does that say about our true ambitions? We're missing our female protagonists; we're receiving sugarcoated female stereotypes.


I cannot say that female protagonists in novels have always been this way, however, and I cannot say that I haven't found my own females sinking into this stereotype. Just as mentioned earlier, there are fabulous examples of female characters in novels out there, even though most of them still develop their stories through falling in love. Jane Eyre and Janie Starks strive for self-fulfillment, put love second, and are truly confident with themselves. Jo March broke the female stereotype of the nineteenth century and proved that females don't have to first be weak in order to find their strength. Lisbeth Salander is so creatively complex and intriguing that it's hard not to call her one of the greatest female protagonists in literature. All of these females are not just females, but real, complex humans with their own diverse ambitions. It's not just a man or the quest for love that drives them on and helps them discover themselves, but the traits and qualities they've developed separately, the lack of which has sunk our female protagonists into so deep of a hole. Our literary females have to thicken.

When it comes down to it, the way our writers develop the female protagonists of their novels needs to change. We're trading the character essentials every masterpiece novel has for the satisfaction of a female-character demand. Once this demand dies out, all we will have left to show for the literature of our generation is the repeated story of the same girl in the same relationships. And that's not something to be proud of. The female protagonists in our YA novels need humanity. Our females need diversity; they need complexity; they need originality. We cannot repeat and recycle her name any longer. Instead, we must introduce her.

For similar content, check out this post: http://bust.com/feminism/10251-female-protagonists-are-on-the-rise-diversity-isnt.html