Men Are Generic, Women Are Special: Difference between revisions

{{quote|"''If a smash hit has mostly male characters, nobody raises an eyebrow, but if it has mostly female characters, it's a Great Big Anomaly worth several trees' worth of shocked speculation.''"|'''Sarah Morayati''', author of the [[Interactive Fiction]] work ''Broken Legs'', in an interview discussing gender in fiction}}

 

 

Take the English language, for example. The terms "Man" and "Mankind" are often used to represent humanity in general, whereas "Woman" and "Womankind" only ever refer to humans of the female gender. However there is an interesting twist in the etymology of man and woman. Originally men were 'werman', women were 'wifman' and man was the generic way of referring to people of all genders. Over time 'werman' became replaced with the gender neutral man while 'wifman' became woman and retained its exclusiveness. Our culture somehow lost the impetus to refer to men as their own gender and our language evolved to reflect that. Certain languages take this concept even further, such as French, which has two words for 'They'; 'Ils' and 'Elles' - being masculine and feminine respectively, but if there is a mixed group of men and women, 'Ils' is the default.<ref>In fact, in French grammar, this is correct to the point at which if there was a group of ''any'' number of women, and one single man, 'ils' would be the correct group pronoun.</ref>

This phenomenon carries [[Unfortunate Implications]] for both male and female characters when used in fiction. The problem for male characters is that maleness is not special in the way femaleness is, and is often [[Men Are the Expendable Gender|undervalued to the point of being disposable]]. On the positive side their actions are less likely to be judged based on their gender, leaving them with more freedom to act. The implication for female characters however is that femaleness ''is'' special in a way maleness isn't, or, to put it more bluntly, ''being male is "normal", while being female is "abnormal"'' which can either mean [[Women Are Wiser|superior to men]] or [[Men Are Better Than Women|inferior.]]

 

 

Likely caused by (or at least exacerbated by) the fact that [[Most Writers Are Male]].

 

* One of the most obvious consequences of this trope is the role of [[The Chick]] in the [[Five-Man Band]]. Males tend to have more diverse personality traits ([[The Big Guy]], [[The Smart Guy]]) that may or may not fit the traditional defintion of "masculinity", whereas [[The Chick]] is often defined solely by her femininity/typically feminine character type.

* The tropes [[Women's Mysteries]] and [[Wondrous Ladies' Room]] both depend on the idea that the female lifestyle is completely alien to men.

* [[Tertiary Sexual Characteristics]] are more commonly applied to female characters than males. The implication here is that viewers will always percieve a cartoon creature as male unless given plenty of evidence to the contrary. [[Non-Mammal Mammaries]] may serve a similar function. Additionally, androgenous or sexless beings will often be portrayed as having a masculine physique.

* This trope also applies to sexual relations, where women are generally seen as "desirees" and men as "desirers". This has the [[Unfortunate Implications]] of goods (supply and demand) but it can also be described as follows: women "own" something special that men both lack and want.

* A philosophy adopted by some male writers and directors, such as [[James Cameron]], is that the secret to writing a strong female character is to write her as a male [[Gender Flip|and then change the pronouns]]. (Yes, we could talk about the [[Unfortunate Implications]] of that until the cows come home, but the ends justify the means.) What it means with regard to this trope is that it takes a lot of effort to write a female character that is free from all of these "special" characteristics associated with femininity.

** Additionally, characters originally written to be male can be easily changed to be female with few alterations; however, a character written to be female has to undergo more significant revisions to be [[Gender Flip|re-written as male]]. Otherwise he might come off as a bit... "special".

* Many languages use different versions of job titles for men and women. Traditionally, the male version is the generic term.

** Interestingly in Irish the word for nurse literally translated as "female nurse" (beannaltra) but was changed to simply "altra" to make it more gender neutral.

*** In Dutch, the archaic word for "doctor" is "geneesheer", which approximately translates to "healing man". There is a gender-neutral word for it, "geneeskundige" ("healer"), but it's hardly ever used since people use the words "arts" or "dokter" instead... which are both masculine nouns.

** Many Russian actresses dislike the word "actress", prefering "actor" instead, even when they're speaking a language where it doesn't make much sense.

* Played with in [[Real Life]]. Embryologically (in mammals), the genitalia of both male and female fetuses arise from a 'genital tubercle' that resembles neither. The deciding point is the presence or absence of the SRY gene (usually located on the Y chromosome, though there are individuals who have them on difference chromosomes due to gene translocation mutations). If the SRY gene is not present, then genital tubercle will become female genitalia. If it is present, then it will become male genitalia. The SRY gene does not contain "instructions" for making men; it acts as a biological switch that affects the expression of other genes (on other chromosomes). So the genetic material for making men and women are contained in everyone, but only men have the "male" switch.

* A wife taking her husband's last name is considered normal, but her keeping her original last name is seen as something highly unusual and showing the woman to be dominant. The normativeness of the name change has shifted the bar so that what is essentially a purely equal thing, both people keeping their names, has become something seen as unequal in the woman's favor.

** A man taking his wife's name is completely unheard-of. She can take his entirely, she can hyphenate hers, or she can keep hers, but his name must remain his name.

*** Interestingly, a survey done in the last few years suggests that women who keep their surnames after marriage are seen as more empowered and women who change or hyphenate their names are looked down upon slightly (at least in the US where the study was conducted).

** It's perfectly acceptable for women to keep their last names after marriage in the former Soviet republics, due to the Communist ideology that all people (men and women included) are equal and must be treated as such. This becomes more of a problem if they move to a country where it's not as acceptable. Even women who change their last name will have it spelled differently, for the most part, due to Russian language rules (e.g. "Ivanov" for male and "Ivanova" for female).

* Most video games in which the player's character is a woman will have a third-person camera perspective, which distances the player somewhat from the character, (and allows [[Ms. Fanservice|the player to examine her voluptuous figure]]) , while most first-person games feature a male or ambiguous player character. This may imply that [[Most Gamers Are Male|most gamers]] find it difficult to identify with being a female character at that level... either that, or the programmers decided that there's no point having a female protagonist if we don't get to ogle her.

* Women have gynaecologists and men have urologists. Urology being a discipline that lumps the male reproductive tract in with the gender-neutral study/treatment of the urinary tract. In other words urologists treat both men and women, not men exclusively.

** In another way, a prostate clinic is the closest you'll see to an andrology ward, suggesting that the "base" patient is gender-neutral or male, with gynaecology covering the parts where women differ.

* In many jokes where the gender of the character does not matter, the protagonist will be male by default (i.e. "a guy goes to the doctor complaining of a cold..."), and female only if it somehow pertains to her being a woman (i.e. "a woman driving by a country lake decides to go skinny-dipping...).

* Nudity taboos in general seem to represent this. There is something more pornographic about the female nude even in a completely nonsexual context, though in blatant [[Fan Service]] the female is more represented.

** However, when it comes to full frontal, it is male nudity that is considered more obscene and as [[Fan Disservice]].

** Most model skeletons, muscle figures, and other anatomical models still use the male as a default design, possibly with interchangeable parts for the different versions of the reproductive system.

** The famous museum exhibits "Body Worlds" and "Bodies: The Exhibition". has been accused of this. The exhibit features preserved human bodies, stripped of the skin but showing the bones and muscles. One complaint about both exhibits was that female bodies were only shown in "feminine" poses, such as those related to maternity, reproduction, and other poses and actions associated more with women. Male bodies, meanwhile, could do everything else. The complaints were not just about enforcing gender roles, but also enforcing this very trope: that men are the norm and women are something out of the norm.

*** Or the above-mentioned Meredith. It's "[[Stargate Atlantis|Rodney]]", thank you very much.

** Female ducks are simply referred to as, well, "ducks," but male ducks are called "drakes."

*** Female ducks are also called "hens," but very rarely so.

* There's a special word for gay/homosexual women, "lesbian", but not one for gay/homosexual men that unambiguously means ''only'' men (apart from various slurs).

 

 

 

== [[Fan Works]] ==

* Almost every [[Parody Sue]] in existence is Female. And, of course, the term "[[Mary Sue]]" is much more common than "[[Gary Stu]]."

 

== [[Film]] ==

* In fact, if you looked at all the mainstream animated movies (at least, those that got a theatrical release) from the past five years, you could probably count all the ones with female lead characters on both hands.

 

== Literature ==

** As a twist, the Dwarf femininity issue is presented as ''cultural'' rather than sexist. It is simply considered un-Dwarfish and none seem to have a problem interacting with women of other races. A few dwarfs obliquely refer to the fact that dwarvish culture can look odd to humans, and they have no expectation that another culture to follow their rules... [[Take That|unlike humans]].

* [[Peter Pan]] believes one girl in Neverland is worth twenty boys, as they're much too clever to fall out of their prams and be sent there naturally.

* In the ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' series, the convention is for individuals to use their own gender as a generic pronoun, unless there is some indication otherwise. Many characters still, however default to "men".

 

* Many seasons of ''[[Super Sentai]]'' will feature only [[The Smurfette Principle|one female Ranger]] who will often get more development and chances to save the day because of her specialness as the only female ranger. The other male rangers will often be generic sidekicks with the Red Ranger taking the lead, giving the implication that the male rangers are all the same and that the female one is as special as the leader and is more deserving of focus and development than the others simply because she is a girl.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

 

== [[Toys]] ==

 

== Video Games ==

* Gen IV in ''[[Pokémon]]'' introduced [[Tertiary Sexual Characteristics|aesthetic gender differences on members of the same species]]. In most cases, the "regular" design (i.e., the one that had been used in previous generations) went for males and the females got something different. (One notable exception would be Xatu.) Although the gender differences are quite realistic and reflect gender differences in animals in real life. For example, female Bug Pokemon tend to have wider thoraxes than the males.

* In most RPGs, there are [[Game Favoured Gender|more female-specific equipment, character classes, and/or abilities than male-specific.]]

* In ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'', one of Johnny Cage's moves involves him doing the splits and punching his opponent in the groin. It doesn't work on females. Or for some reason bosses. Though, this applies mostly to the older series, as newer games strive for gender neutrality, as well as gameplay balance.

* In the ''[[Mass Effect]]'' series, krogan females are highly prized than krogan males simply for one reason: fertile krogan females are the only ones who are able to reproduce. While seemingly mundane, it's very useful when your entire species is ''dying from a sterility plague.'' The krogan are afflicted by the genophage, which only makes one in every thousand pregnancies viable, and as such, when players visit the krogan homeworld in ''Mass Effect 2'', the fertile females and children are kept completely separate from the other clans.

*** Played straight with humans in ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'', at least in regards to cerberus. [[Mooks|Assault Troopers and Centurions are]] male, while [[Elite Mooks|Phantoms and Nemeses]] are female.

* ''[[Nethack]]'' has the female-specific Valkyrie class. All the other classes can be initially created as either sex, though [[Gender Bender|amulets of change]] work just as well on Valkyries as anyone else.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Women Are Delicate]]

[[Category:Meta Concepts]]

[[Category:Double Standard]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]